The bright morning sunrise was peeking over the horizon, slowly rising to make day out of night. To bath the ocean in a soft glow of a new day. A new beginning. 

The girl curled under the ocean, under layers of shell, she could not see the new day dawning. She had her experiences and choices and responsibilities layered onto her. Parts of the shell were iridescent blue, layers of her shell were bright green, other layers solid black. Every layer was precious to her, she cultured the layers, added more layers, days of bright yellow, days of deep red, days of vibrant blue. She cultured them, like an oyster cultures a pearl. She tended her shell layers, like a gardener tends a beloved fruit bearing orchard. 

One day, as the girl was tending her shell, she noticed a thin vein running through one side of her shell. It was her newest layer, a deep red of rage, and it had a silver vein running through from one end of her protective shell, to the other. With one finger, she slowly traced along the cold silver streak, so fine and thin it would disappear if she tilted her head another way, causing her to question if she was seeing a silver streak at all. 

The girl decided the silver streak must be a new layer, a new experience, and decided she would tend to it, the same as she had tended to her many other layers of shell. Many days and weeks past, she had started on building another layer, this one a bright green of hope. As she layered on her bright green, over the deep red, the thin silver line would bleed through, into her new beautiful layer. Only this time, the thin silver was turning into a thicker and bolder line, streaking now through her beloved layers of work. It could not be denied. 

Ignoring the growing silver streak running through her work, she layered on one of her favorite layers, iridescent blue, it glowed of a new day for her, if she turned her head one way then another, different colors would come out. Some blue, some green, some the smallest flash of pink. Her favorite, one of contentment and contemplation. But the silver streak had grown, had grown to a width and breadth should could no longer ignore, could no longer try to keep covering up. 

Making a quick decision she decided the silver streak was calling to her, she was to learn something from this solid silver road, now boldly running across her roof of shells. 

Seeing a flash of light glint off a shovel, she picked it up, absently, without thinking, without forethought, she started to chip away one small corner, at the bottom of her shell, where the shell meets the earth. Where the shell grew deep into the ground of the ocean floor, where you could not tell where the ocean floor ended, and the shell started.

Using her shovel, she discovered the silver line was brittle, like an old shell washed up onto the beach under too many days of beating sun. It practically crumbled beneath her shovel. 

The girl was scared but curious. Too curious now to stop, too curious now to sleep, too curious now to do anything but use her small shovel. Chipping away, bit by bit, by bit, it crumbled under her exacting hits. At first tentative, she now was swinging with all her might, hitting one section at a time, watching it fall and crumble to her feet.

Her hair was covered in silver dust, her feet scored by silver shells hitting her flesh. Her arms were tired and heavy. Her limbs now covered in scars from wounds inflicted as she worked. She didn’t care. She didn’t notice. A small trickle of blood rolled down one cheek, she only swiped it away. Not caring, not feeling, only working. Singly minded now, letting nothing else in to crowd her thoughts. Her only thought was getting rid of that silver streak. It consumed her. 

She started to feel a deep sense of rage and anger. What was that silver streak doing there, marring her beautiful work? Her years of shell building, ruined! Ruined by one thoughtless silver streak. She wanted it gone, wanted it banished. 

Her hair stuck damp to her cheeks and back. Her blue eyes were crazed with the need to rid herself of this silver streak. 

Finally, like a pirate finding a treasure, she hit out with her now dull shovel, and met with nothing. She hit nothing. Water flowed into her protective shell, first just at her feet, cold salt water licking at her toes. She started at it, not understanding, confused. As she stared, the sea water hit her ankle bones, then her calf muscles, cold and unforgiving. 

Putting down her shovel she backed up, with her hands in front of her, as if to ward off the flowing water. As if her hands alone could stop the water slowly but steadily tricking in. She frantically looked around and jumped onto her nearby chair. The one she had sat so many hours, days, and years. Worn all over, colored a warm honey brown made from love and age. What about her chair? The sea water would eat it, would swallow it whole and her chair would be lost to her. Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixing with the blood of her labors. Looking around, as if seeing it for the first time, she saw a lonely place. There was only the one place setting at the table. Only her own books lining the bookshelves, only her music in a pile on her night stand. Only one small bed for herself; so cozy, so comfortable, so safe. 

She didn’t want to let the ocean into her shell, another choice of regret. Another bad decision. Why hadn’t she left that streak alone! Why had she let it taunt her like that? She was weak. She always knew she was weak. Here was proof. She couldn’t even let a silver streak into her own shell. How selfish she was. 

Realizing her choices could not be undone. She had ruined the home she had spent so long building, ruined her beautiful protective shell. She grabbed a back pack of what she could salvage, put it on and prepared for her journey. A journey she never wanted to go on. A journey she didn’t even know she was preparing for. She hated journeys. She wanted her shell back. It was too late; she had even ruined that. 

Using her shovel, the water now snaking up her thigh, she hit the silver streak over and over again. Hit it with a force of rage and hate she didn’t even know was inside her.

Breaking the water’s surface, she inhaled a huge gasp of air. Filling her lungs with the taste of free air for the first time in her life. Slowing her breathing she scanned the water’s surface. The waves slowly lapped at her neck and she turned in a full circle. The shore looked inviting. It’s soft glow of sand illuminated by the falling light and bright sunset. So, tempting. It looked within reach. She could easily swim to the shore, let the waves carry her, floating as she was drawn to its welcoming banks. 

Feeling something inside her body, she turned around, on instinct. The left and right were long horizons of water, cool and comforting, gentle waves. 

Turning around and facing the falling sun and warm glow of the suns dying light, in its pinks and oranges, she started swimming. She didn’t know where she was going. It was lunacy to swim away from all that was safe and sure, the solid form of sand and earth under her feet. She knew this. Having broken through the hard surface of her jail cell, she couldn’t swim towards safety. She was safe her entire life. Always choosing the path well worn, the path sure under foot, the safe path. 

She started with great long strokes, with no destination in mind, only to swim away from her path. Whatever that may be. 

Turning over onto her back she floated, feeling comfort flow over her body, lap at her sides, caressing her cheeks. She started slow, long, back strokes, feeling every inch of warm water enveloping her in its embrace. 

As she got farther out to sea, the voices started. They were so faint at first, she wasn’t sure she was hearing them at all. But with each stroke the volume was turned up. 

Come back they chanted

Come back they hissed 

This is your place they pleaded 

Her body reacted strongly, almost pulling her back. She felt her body betraying her brain, felt her body long to turn around, felt the tug of her stomach back towards shore. It took every ounce of brain power to overcome her body’s reaction to the voices. Her body was getting tight and taunt, like guitar strings being strung, one turn at a time, back towards shore. 

Turning over onto her stomach she picked up her speed, furiously rowing her arms, one two, one two, one two, go go go. Keep the pace, keep the pace. 

The voices in her head started screaming now. No longer a soft chorus of pleading but an angry hive of shouts, banging around in her head, hitting hard on one side and then the other, it took every ounce of will to keep them from driving her mad. 

You’re a selfish girl the voices shouted.

There’s nothing better than here, their voices a high pitch of panic mixed with anger.

You’ve always been ungrateful, their voices a hard line of anger.

You will never be happy because you are an unhappy person they spit. 

The girl closed her eyes and swam faster, putting all her energy into stroking, moving, only moving, don’t think, don’t think. 

As she neared the surf’s edge, she felt a tickle at her feet and realized a seaweed was snaking up her ankle. Cold and comforting. Winding, winding, winding, until it loosely was wrapped around her knee. She felt it but did nothing, hypnotized. With a jerk it tightened, and she felt it physically pulling her back, dragging her inch by inch, back to her shell, back to the shore. Fighting she tried to swim faster, out run the pulling weed, but it was no use. 

Doubt crept into her mind, what if she was selfish? What if she truly will never be happy, anywhere she goes, what if she was rotten at the core. What if the voices and tight seaweed were trying to save her? Letting go, she stopped fighting and let the weed start to drag her back to shore, one foot, two feet, three feet, her body slack now. All her fight seeping out of body into the waves around her, she felt her life force fade, one wave at a time. Didn’t she always know she couldn’t do this; didn’t she always know this was not meant for her. True safety, true freedom, trueness, wholeness, for her.

Letting the weed pull her, floating now with her arms flung out at her sides, in surrender, her head turned to the side. She felt a single tear work its way down her cheek, one salty tear mixed into an ocean of salty tears. 

Then she saw it, first blurry and unfocused, a red beacon, almost swallowed up by the pink and orange of the almost set sun. Coming into focus and burning bright was another island, another place, another shore. Not like her own surf, shell, and sand. But an island all the same. 

Furiously and with one motion she ripped the weed from her leg with a force she didn’t know was inside her. 

The voices peaked into an inaudible scream of panic and angry yells, all at once, so she didn’t know what was said or whose voice it was. A tangle of years of need. 

She swam away again, with a force and energy she didn’t knew she had left inside of her, faster with a force she always suspected was deep inside her but never accessed.

Seeing the final waves of the surf crash in front of her, over the last few feet of her cove, she reached deep inside herself and dove deep under the crashing wave, feeling nothing, thinking nothing, only reaching deep inside for peace. 

Her lungs burned and her eyes stung. Nothing mattered anymore. She felt none of it. All at once she was getting pushed up, buoyed by the waves, the ocean pushing her up the last few feet. Her chest ached with the need to breath. 

Breaking the surface, she let air fill every part of her being. She let her body just be, just float, just breathe. 

Slowly coming aware, she saw the shores of the new island. The one that was fuzzy, unfocussed, in the falling light but she instinctually knew was there. 

No voices were with her, she heard nothing. 

Turning back to the shore that she had just swam from, she saw from a distance it was only an island, only a place. Not a place she had to stay, only one place in a limitless ocean. And now the voices were quiet. She wouldn’t have to hide herself away in a shell any longer. There was nothing to hurt her away from the cove. There was nothing to crush her. 

A circle of people, eating on a tapestry of shining, beckoning threads, she moved towards the new island. No longer hard, no longer a fight, the waves and ocean a friend. It was effortless to be drawn to the new island. She didn’t know what was there, what she would find. But she knew it was only herself now, now that she had broken her shell, it was only her.