Respect

She sat on the deserted beach, alone, arms grasped around her legs, a little ball, small. Sunrise was coming. In a few hours there would be tourists coming – those early-morning tourists who crawl over from the resorts in a hung-over haze to claim their spots on the sand. And the juice-sellers. Pineapple juice, guava juice, mango juice, banana juice. All she had had to eat in five days was a banana, she realized. She wasn’t trying to starve; she just wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t tired, either – actually, she thought, she was deeply, deeply tired, just not tired enough to sleep. That’s why she was here on the beach, watching the sunrise, after another sleepless night. Then she would crawl back to the half air-conditioned, cheap resort room where she had apparently ended up living because she had nowhere else to go. No one to go to. No one expecting her.

As the sun’s rays broke over the horizon, they failed to bring that joy that you’re meant to feel at a sunrise. But the sudden brightening illuminated a head, bobbing up and down in the distance. A morning swimmer.

She watched, eager to feel something. Eager to feel contempt, perhaps, at their early-morning fitness regime. Contempt masking jealousy, as she had never been an early-morning fitness person, or an early-morning anything person – apart from after a sleepless night.

But they weren’t swimming – not for fitness, anyway. They were just bobbing there, out far enough to be treading water but not really going anywhere. But as she watched, they seemed to be receding into the distance.

She started to feel sick. What were they doing? Were they trying to drown? Her mind raced. Was it possible to drown yourself if you just kept swimming out and out? Or were they intending to let a shark get them? Her old roommate used to talk about death sometimes, but not in a morbid way – just matter-of-fact. “Once I hit a certain age, I’ll just go out and let the sharks get me.” Her old roommate was a diver, with that Australian nonchalant attitude about life, and, apparently, about death.

And then, she realized, the bobbing head had disappeared. Either too far into the distance, over the horizon – or too far to see, with her poor eyesight – or under the water. Maybe down under with the sharks.

She jumped up, looked wildly, frantically around – but there was no one. This wasn’t a fishing beach. This wasn’t a beach where anyone would be, so early in the morning. The late-night partiers would have all gone, around 3 or 4am – and then she, and apparently this person, had arrived around 5am.

But this person had chosen to leave.

Her phone was back in the hotel room. She got up began the walk back, and as she walked, she said a little prayer. A prayer of respect. One of the few feelings she was still able to feel; respect. Respect for the dead.