Tidal Baptism

The ocean told his secrets to the waning moon as she rose, pale and watchful, over the bruised horizon. A woman, unshod and unmade, stood at the edge of the world. Behind her, the life she’d built smoldered like a dying fire. But the sea called her by a name she remembered only in her dreams. She stepped forward. The tide embraced her gently, like a mother cradling her child in the womb. Drowning and flying, she chose neither. She chose to become something else entirely: beautiful.