Haunting Water

https://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Water-Mr-Navid-Daneshjou/dp/150258834X/ref=tmm_p...

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Chapter 1:
Impulses

My name is Richard. I am a voyager on the seas of remembrance.


I always enjoy the south seas of the Vast Ocean; I can liberate my mind and soul here. There is little land to block the path of an explorer searching for the decency of simpler things and a simpler life. I also cherish the anonymity and solitude this great ocean offers. The immense body of water allows me the illusion of freedom to vanish—disappear, to be nothing more than random foam that suddenly forms on the water’s surface and dissolves just as quickly.
Yet there is no dissolution of my pain, for there is nothing in this watery world that can restore what I have set adrift, nor what I have sunken. Neither is there salvage of that which is forever lost within me. All that remains is the faint resonance of a joyous past drowned in waves of ghastly memory—a past that is now so diluted by images of brutality that I can see no reason to recollect any of it. Yet I cannot forget it, so I must retell it and hope you will harken.
The Coral Reefs are at the southwestern edge of the Vast Ocean. They possess a splendor that soothes the heart and reminds any observer that there is still beauty left in this world. So long as there is this Beauty, there will be hope for a better future, and with that, the civility of a gentler existence.
There is also a spot in the sea where the ocean has no bottom, or none that has been thoroughly seen or explored. Some say there is nothing there; others proclaim that it is where the soul of all oceans resides. To me, this bottomless deep is a watery taboo, a presence that is always ignored but never forgotten. It is north of the Coral Reefs in the west of the Vast Ocean. I wish to go there one day, dive deep, and see what resides there. Maybe I can fill that Bottomless Deep with my presence, or maybe it can satiate the empty spot inside me with its crushing depth. Perhaps I can find the answers I seek, or it can help me escape the question I dread the most. I have seen the deadest spot of my own soul and the bleakest stains on the souls of others. Now, all that remains to be seen in these waters is the depth of its unforgotten soul, its last mystery.
I wish I deserved to see the Beauty or had the courage to see the Deep. Neither shall be mine, so I must withdraw.
My mind wanders back like driftwood to the shores of those accursed islands where it all began, in the eastern waters of the Vast Ocean, opposite the Beauty and the Deep. For only at those island shores can I feed my black spot’s enduring hunger still. It is there that a constant reminder of life’s vicious vicissitudes pulsates to envelop my existence, at once enlarging and darkening my enchained soul’s spot within its enslaving custody.
I have to go there because, ultimately, I do not want to forget or brighten the dark stain engulfing my being. I am drawn there because I crave the oblivion and the numbness that only it can provide to dull my pain. Yet my soul’s darkness is never satisfied, nor has it forgotten what happened there. It is an unquenchable addiction that consumes my soul.
Hence, I must tell you my story and explain my motives so that you can learn the answer to that dreaded question: Why?
I think you will agree, once you have heard my tale, that I have every right to travel where I roam and every validation for what I have done. I must convince you that I have earned the retirement that I am condemned to endure until it is my time to join the waters of tranquility in the Cerulean Ocean Above. You must see my reasons, as jarring as they may seem to you, and understand why I had no choice. I must persuade you, as I have convinced myself, that I was justified. In your understanding, there might be a measure of comfort or redemption that has eluded me thus far...