The quest

At midnight, he was back at the sea. He was hoping to find answers to some questions.

He had looked under a creaking ceiling fan, on a yielding armchair, through the pages of a book, between the notes of music, through the crowd on a bus, around one unforgiving concrete bench, in the throes of textual intercourse, between the seats of a movie theatre, in a pair of bottomless sleepy smoky dark eyes, down soft flowy silky hair, along glazed milky irresistibly smooth skin, through rivulets of tobacco smoke, in the haze of night clubs, behind the stroke of midnight, in the corner of a glass cabin, at the bottom of many cups of coffee, down a railway line, and even on his person. But he didn’t find any.

He had consulted silence, solitude, darkness, sleep and alcohol. They entertained him for hours but they had no answers.

He was hoping the sea would answer his questions, like it had before.

He was one of the last few in line. The queue of devotees ran down various ages, and many life-stages.

It was quite late when he went up to speak to it. But the sea did not wish to. In fact, it withdrew its waves. As the waves receded, they laid bare the jagged doorstep of the sea. The rocks looked like they were there to protect the sea from whoever it deemed undeserving of its wisdom. The rocks were the ‘unwelcome’ mat of the sea.

He left it alone. Waiting all these hours had amounted to naught. He decided he would consult alcohol one more time.