Lara's Wanderings

“She wasn’t one of them, you know,” said the ancient man sitting on the coastal rocks above me.

I had come to the beach to take photographs of the sunset and the seals for my college class. The 35mm camera in my hand had been my grandfather’s before all the digital features became standard. I used a tripod for long exposures and various filters and lenses to experiment with different effects. Once I was done here, I would return to campus and manually develop the film so I could create prints the same way the master photographers of past generations had done it.

The old man sitting on the rocks above me kept talking. “She had come out of the sea like they do. It was an evening just like this, and I was sitting here making my fishing net like always.”

I stopped taking pictures of the prismatic sky on the sparkling water and glanced at the man speaking to me. He was staring ahead at the white beach where the seals were sunbathing. He wore an old hand knitted sweater and a contrasting knitted cap. He could have been any age between eighty and one hundred years old.

“Are you talking about a seal?” I asked as I returned to taking pictures.

“No.” In my peripheral vision, I saw him smile sadly and look at me for the first time. “I’m talking about my wife. She looked like a seal when she came out of the water, but then she stood on her hind feet and peeled off the fur. My, she was beautiful.”

I stopped and looked at the man again. He didn’t look drunk, but he could be senile or remembering incorrectly.

The old fisherman nodded and turned his attention back to the sea. “I had heard about the selkies when I was young, so when she was looking for shells, I hid her fur in a cave over there.” He pointed to my left.

I glanced in that direction and saw how the rocky coast went up into low cliffs.

“When I returned, she was still here,” the old man said. “I invited her to dinner, and well, she stayed with me. We were married a week later. You didn’t just live with people back then. People used to believe in love at first sight back then, too.”

I put my camera strap around my neck and grabbed my gear. I suddenly had the urge to take closer pictures of the seals. “How long were you married?” I asked politely.

He sighed. “Just a year. She came here every morning and evening to look for shells for the etchings she made. One day, she found the fur. I saw her running along the sand with it.” He pointed towards the beach. “She threw it on there, and went back into the sea. I never saw her again. I never could forget her, though.”

“Did you ever remarry?” I asked.

“No,” he said as he stared at the sea. “But I am sure she has forgotten me. She once told me that her people don’t age, and they don’t settle down the way we do. They have a drive to wander and search, but they never know what they are searching for.”

“Umm…wow,” I said awkwardly. “It sounds like an old legend or a fairytale. I’m sorry. I wish you well.”

I wandered towards the seals. The conversation hung with me, but I tried to shake it. I was a sentimental man and felt his pain deeply, yet I didn’t quite believe it either.

I went along the coast, taking pictures as I went. After almost an hour, I found a cute baby seal I wanted to photograph. I kept my distance, not wanting a mother seal angry at me.

My caution and concern about an angry mother seal made me jump and shout when a woman tapped my shoulder.

“Sorry.” I apologized for shouting in her face. “Can I help you?”

The woman was about my age with tan skin, long chestnut hair down to her waist, and large brown eyes. She wore a fur blanket around her shoulders. Underneath, she could not have been wearing anything more than a bikini. I blushed like an adolescent boy.

“Could you give this to the man you were just talking to? The surprise would be better on his heart if it came from a stranger.” She handed me an ornately etched conch shell. It had a motif of flowers and seaweed around a silhouette of a man and a woman. “Could you tell him that I do remember and I found what I was looking for.”

I took the shell from her, and she turned to leave me. I was watching her the whole time as she walked, but somehow I lost sight of her among the brown seals.

Had the shell not been in my hand, I would have thought I dreamed the whole thing. The fisherman’s story was still fresh in my mind. The situation seemed surreal and magical. I turned around with my equipment and went back to the old man on the rocks, wondering if his story had been true. 

He hadn’t moved. He still stared at the sea, and I felt compelled to take a couple of photos of him watching the seals. Then I left my things on the beach and struggled to climb up to him. He watched me with a confused expression on his face. I held out the conch shell. 

He looked down at it and then back up at me. I told him the woman’s message.

The old man’s eyes widened. He took the shell from me with trembling hands. He studied it carefully.

“She remembered my birthday,” he said with heavy emotion in his voice. He looked up at me with watering eyes. “We’re going home.”

He stood with his gift and walked away down the beach. I never saw him again, except in my photographs. 

THE END