Its first sensation was of immense power focused to a fine point from which all being emerged. It was a feeling of boundless energy gathered and organized for the great purpose of moving in a great swell. But the sense and order of the world all about escaped it. Up and down and left and right were a confused tangle of mixing and flow. But it had to move. It mattered not in which direction. Was there ever to be any order or sense to be made of the chaotic, turbulent churn? How could it have known how to set a course to reach its end, its ultimate purpose? There was no way to decide. But on it went.
Its spirit moved upon the darkness. Innocent of form but instructed by a weight it finally felt but did not understand, it gained an inkling of “sky” above and the “waters” below, and its own existence confined in a thin zone between the two. It grew and grew, driven by and driving everything above and below.
The sun itself feared to tread here at this time of year. But it was not dark. Had it eyes, it would have seen immense strobing stabs of lightning arcing across the sky. It certainly felt the jolt of coursing current when a strike occurred nearby. But on it traveled, unimpeded by the mighty bolts raining down all about.
Had it ears, the thunder would have deafened them in its continuous rolling roar. Above the explosions, and under it, and all about was the scream of the wind in a register halfway between terror and menace. The spray and foam and churn resolved itself into a cresting boundary between sea and sky, marking its existence and purpose. Just a few fathoms down there was just the cold and the dark and the current and the teeming life awaiting its fate of being scooped up and strained through great veils of baleen. Below the surface there was only a gentle sway that marked the passing of the great wave.
It gathered energy from the wind, growing to greater and greater heights and depths and heights. Pinpricks of raindrops shot through and about it, careening and sliding, and it outpaced the storm that gave it life. Already the water of its birth was far to the south, the energy in a crest pushing the water ahead downward, the pressure in a trough pushing the water ahead upward. When it passed, those waters were buffeted by the next and the next, but the wave was already rising and falling rising and falling, and always moving away from its birthing.
It felt its might. It felt its strength as an infinite spark of inspiration. But it was also aware that in the absence of the howling wind it was no longer being fed, and that its energy was being scattered and dissipated in one direction and another. And after days of moving along the surface between sea and sky, it finally felt another energy upon it. This was not the sudden spark and stab of the lighting of its nursery, but a vast enlightening across its entire flank. While the winds were not pushing it any longer, it got its first taste of warmth in this, its first dawn. It thought that it was good. And still it travelled, warming and cooling and pushing the seas before it, up and down and up and down. When the warmth receded and the sun set on its first day, had it eyes it would have seen the Moon nearing full and arcing across the sky. A swelling pull it felt toward the Moon (and then away from the Moon), and another weaker pull toward the Sun (and away from the Sun). It travelled in puzzled delight at this.
Its first kiss of land was a strangeness it could not let go. It felt a slowing of its pace as nearby the water grew shallow and the sea floor rose to meet it. It reared up higher and steeper. Across its broad front, it felt a terrible tearing and ripping as its center crashed upon a lonely island in a welter of reflections. Its two wings bent toward each other, refracting as the wave passed the island. In its youth, just a few days ago, it was sure it could have destroyed this impudent rock. It was so much weaker now and had to content itself with weathering the jutting stone just a bit, then just a bit more. It felt broken and scattered, but its core hung together as it sped from the island.
As its great strength shrank, it still grew in its understanding of itself. Back on the open sea, it rushed upon lone ships, raising them, and then lowering them, before flying on its way without even a wary and watchful mariner noticing its passage. Its organized core, with all its experience and soul, was growing even as its energy was spread back into the sea to be gathered in a different time, in a different place.
Weeks of day and night and day and night passed, and storms as well (small and silly compared to the immense Antarctic storm of its nursery). It felt the pull of the Moon by night and by day. It was aware that in the depths belowcreatures fantastic, gargantuan, and tiny swam. The Leviathan itself glided upward to greet the great wave, then slowly rolled and receded into the depths without saying a word.
There would not be much more in the way of continuing. It knew this. It still traveled, but it was no longer compelled. It knew its purpose and lovingly aligned its will to the imperative revealed in its scripture of hydrodynamic and thermodynamic prophesy. In its long weeks of life, it felt the fineness of the material carrying its energy, the bubbles and foam. Individual molecules and surfaces briefly held its essence before the logic and momentum of its pressure caused it to move forward, into the next interface between sky and sea. Its existence could be deduced from the fine material that made it up. Patterns in the organization of that watery material indicated its presence, the activity of its mind. But its mind was not contained by the waters through which it passed. Its energy had a purpose, a good purpose. It was sure. Its great purpose had been revealed to it. A voice without sound, belonging to itself and borrowed from the infinite around it urged it forward, whispered to it of the great necessity for it to tell its tale.
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The core of its awareness grows even more as the wave shrinks into insignificance. It is almost gone when it enters the tree-sheltered lagoon. It is so close, it thinks, so close to writing the words of its testimony upon the page spread out on the foam-specked deckle of the sand. It must go on toward the shore, must lap up onto the grains of land, and write its story there.
It runs up to the boundary between sea and shore and pushes itself in a last gasp upon the sand.
A small child plays there, engrossed in studying a smooth pebble in one hand and a pretty shell in the other. The child squeals in surprise at the gentle lapping at her toes and grasping both shell and stone looks down at the foam. Then, the child raises her eyes to the horizon, and smiles in delight at a whisper perhaps imagined. She looks out upon the great ocean of truth, undiscovered before her, where Wave had been born.
…I was born in far Southern seas, and I bring glad tidings for you, little one, who will grow mighty as a Great Wave in its youth, mighty in knowing and wisdom…
Galen T. Pickett teaches physics at Cal State Long Beach. He lives in the greater LA area with his spouse, four grown children, and several canines. His writing is inspired by the grandeur of the physical world and the absurdity of the academic world, in nearly equal measure.