Two Ancient Lovers

“Tell me something different, dada,” the girl said, “Enough of the dragons and the princes.” They sat together, hand in hand, legs dangling over the ledge, on their favourite rock. The ocean churned around the rock, the waves tossed themselves playfully against its dark, wet face. Their feet, their legs, their face, were all wet with salt-water spray, but they didn’t mind. They never minded the spray. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll tell you a story of two ancient lovers, doomed to the saddest of fates.”

Many, many years ago, before the first animals walked this earth, there was just the ocean. A beautiful, deep, colourful, playful and terrible thing she was. An ocean much like the one around you now. And in the middle of this ocean, thrust out from the bowels of this planet was a rock. A big one, much bigger than the one you’re sitting on, but looking exactly the same. Dark, brooding, glistening with salt-water, hard granite showing through under the softer limecrust, he stood tall with no-one, nothing around to diminish his majesty. She loved him. When happy, she would lap at his feet, swirl and dance around him, rush in and out of his crevices. And the rock would stand there, mute. But more often than not, the ocean was an angry creature. When in a foul temper, she would come here to rage and foam and seethe and rant. She would rise, crashing into the rock, slamming into his dark, unyielding sides, a vengeful, impatient fury, directed against a stubborn mute. Now and again, she would churn up a storm of epic proportion and a magnificent wave speeding ahead of the rest of the storm-pack would rush towards him, gathering all its energy for a telling plunge. It would crash against him and with a sharp crack break off an outcrop the size of a house. A part of himself would splinter, clatter and tumble down into her depths. And the rock would stand there, mute, and watch the ocean smile as she collected.

For he loved her too, with an intensity one could only guess at. Deep within him, within all those unyielding layers lay a tender, fragile, beating heart that knew and loved but one thing in this world – the ocean. But not once did he give utterance to his love. He was content to just stand. For that was all he knew. Even when she provoked him, and she enjoyed provoking him - would run away to far-off places, only to come rushing back and tell him of the wonderful things she had seen, the wonderful creatures she had met, and how she wished she could be anywhere but here. Even then, he would listen, mute, knife-wounds twisting into him every time she spoke of a Valinor that lay elsewhere. And with every tease, with every tantrum, with every wave she threw at him, she chipped him just a little. And with every broken boulder she collected, she got closer to the heart of this rock she loved.

Centuries passed, aeons. Birds, animals, deserts, forests, men, machines, all came and went. Ships from far-off lands, comets from far-off planets, came flaming, burning, and disappeared. And still the rock stood and withstood, the stubborn, loving, mute. And still the ocean raged and teased and chipped away, the terrible, teasing, beauty. Slowly, inexorably, her efforts began to bear fruit. He felt smaller now to her, than he had ever been. Smaller and somehow, more accessible. She could feel his heart, so close now it felt like her own...

She threw a wave at him but he resisted. Impatient, she flew into a temper. A monstrous wave, raging, foaming, rushed up towards the rock. A resounding crack, a cliff broke and crashed into the white waters, and suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. No rock to crash against, anymore. No beating heart of gold, anymore. Nothing. She had won. She had broken him, reached his very centre. Finally she had found her lovers heart and now it lay lost forever in her watery depths.The wave stumbled and broke, one last silent scream fleeing heavenward from her salt-encrusted lips. The ocean heaved and fell in a dead faint while deep below in her murky, unfathomed, unreachable depths, beating in vain, lay a heart of gold.