Excerpt: A Girl on the Rocks

It was a spring day in Beirut. A warm May day. The sun cast her grace across all who stirred in the city, and all who stirred in the city did not seem to realized the wondrous gift she thus provided.

It was a normal spring day in Beirut. A normal, warm, day in May. An old man walked along the corniche, his time-wrinkled old hands brushing the warm metal railing just briefly, his eyes cast toward the rocks and the see that rushed forward, fell back, and rushed forward again, glimmering all the while. His face was tan, most of the hair was gone from his head, but his mustache was thick and white. His skin was etched with crevices that spoke of the many years he had seen, telling unknown stories without words.

It was a normal day. It was a normal day, until there was a shout that seemed more urgent than all of the other raised voices that clung to the May air. A small group had gathered together, and they each were leaning over the metal railing, brows furrowed together atop wide eyes, their hands stretched as tightly as possible around the metal bars that separated them from the rocks below.

“Somebody do something!” One of them cried, casting a glance back over his shoulder at the strangers around him, searching out the crowd for a split second before the sea once again caught is eyes.

“There’s a girl!” Another one of the small group cried. “A girl--on the rocks!”

Their number grew as passersby donned concerned faces and leaned over the railing, looking down at the rocks below. The old man had to wonder what the problem was. Did not people swim in the sea most days? And did not others lay and sit on the rocks that stretched out into the sea like peninsulas unto themselves? Did not fishermen doze upon the rocks while their lines floated through the gently rocking waves? What was so wrong with a girl on the rocks?

He did not join the group that had gathered to murmur amongst themselves and cast concerned glances around when they could tear their eyes from the scene below. Instead, his decaying body brought him to the railing a few yards away. The scene unfurled itself before his dulled eyes. The water flowed forwards as it always had, as it always would, and caressed the rocks. Then he saw her--she was almost completely submerged in the water, the thin limbs of her arms contrasting against the dark rocks, her long, dark hair half caught in the rhythms of the sea. She seemed in danger of being swept off into the watery kingdom with each jostling movement of the sea.

The old man’s eyes widened and his heart fell into his stomach in the space of a single beat.