Shangri-La
The grainy sand violently burned the soles of my feet as we ran towards the receding water. It felt as if i had ran for an eternity until there were no land left for my feet to conquer. Both of us were gasping for air as we made a stop before the incoming waves. He tightly gripped my hand and gazed at the big blue with anticipation. The unforgiving sun had reached its peak. Our stamina been exhausted by the chase. He gently looked into my eyes, ran his fingers through my damp hair and kissed my forehead with his chapped lips.
“Close your eyes,” he said to me as we heard our pursuers presence not too far away from us.
“That is our paradise. Nobody will disturb us there and we will find eternal happiness.”
I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful place. But something inside of me is telling me that this paradise of ours is a dangerous one. Before I knew it, we were swimming towards that illusion. Our pursuers were coming near. They threw rocks and sticks and one had struck me terribly. The closer I got to the illusion, the more I felt that his life was going to be in danger. I swam with all my might, even forgetting that I did not have the skill to swim. I was swimming after him, my love, to save him from this place he called our paradise. And soon, the end came for me.
A big wave was sent to me. The illusion disappeared along with me.
…
In an instant, I became someone new. I ran towards the cliff that led to the very ocean where my life ended. And there he was looking at the big blue with anticipation and sadness. I reached out to him, an older him, but he looked at me with strange eyes, as if he didn’t know who I was.
Another old man with a big boat said, “It’s finally time.”
“Time for what?” I asked curiously.
“Every year at this exact day and time, the doors to paradise will open in the big blue. It is time for me to cross over and collect the bones of the young ones that had drifted away into the illusion along with their dreams,” said the man.
I had waited for the old man to come back and on his boat were many incomplete sets of human remains. There was one that I recognized immediately.
“This young woman ran away with her lover. I was there when they were in the ocean and the villagers were throwing rocks and sticks at them. They were swimming to the middle of nowhere, to paradise. They were almost there. Suddenly a big wave interfered. The young woman had disappeared along with the illusion. The man was swept back to shore. Such pitiful people. They were never meant to be from the beginning,” said the bone collector.
Hot tears streamed down my face. I was angry, frustrated, and sad. My lover looked at the skeletal remains and asked me why I was crying.
I told him, “Even if what awaits me is death, I will live her [pointing to the young woman’s skeletal remains] life again and again. Because it is in that life that I am in love you. I will always choose a life where I can love you, Dino.”
