The 2025 J.U.C. Awards | Dedication theme: #WaterActionDecade |
Submitted Category: WRITING / Short Story | Submission Code: W9 #JUC2025 | Word count: 687
Title: The Tide Within – Writing Category / Short Story

[#JUCAwards2025] My feet are wet now—yes, I feel it. A scent lingers in the air, pulling me towards an unknown blue. Yeah, I see it. My hands now, there are droplets on them, standing still on my bare, yellow skin. Now I see the bright blue sky? I thought it was the bright sky; now there isn’t even a line cutting through the horizontal line. I walk, each step dissolving into the rhythm of the water flowing through my veins. Like I said, the scent of the sea calls to me, and I follow, one foot after another. Yeah, it is wet, like I changed my form. It doesn’t bother me anyway. Yes, I am wet, but somehow, I have changed form. And I don’t mind. The water, like my skin, becomes a part of me as I wade deeper without even realizing it.

I think while I walk, talk to him, talk to the child. “I feel sad,” I say. A broken smile flickers across my face, splinters of sorrow lodged in my chest like bits of driftwood. “I am human,” I remind myself. “I am human. Isn’t it natural to feel sadness?” The sea might say its ships must sink, just as I say I must feel sorrow. Have you ever thought, child, why does water love to sink them? Perhaps the sea, too, knows sadness. Could it be? Yes, I was speaking of my sadness, wasn’t I?

While I was thinking, I wasn’t quite aware that I was sinking either. I could feel the water on my belly now. When I look at it, it is an immense sea that probably weighs tons. But why did I never feel it was a burden? Why was it this…thin? Like a beautiful cushion dress that you would love to wear. This was water, child.

I keep on thinking, no. Talking. Keep on talking. Have you ever wanted to be like water? I did. I would love to fit in all places at certain times. How? Well, think about it. You are a puddle of water on the ground, and you want to go, disappear. You just need some time, and whatever you want becomes true; you evaporate and fly through the blues of the sky. Now, you are the sky. I have always wanted to fit in every place, take it’s shape, and be right for everything, everyone, like water. Then, I assume, I would eventually be happy.

Go with the flow, they say. I can’t. I feel tension going through my veins in some situations; they want me to be like water in the river, while I feel like the hard rock in the stream. We are bizarre creatures, child. We kill if we love too much, harming what we want to preserve. Pollute the source of life. We are humans, children. I wish you would be something else, like water. Water is powerful; I wish you would be powerful too. You would be able to kill while also saving a child. Think of a flower—a beautiful one with pink leaves. Water is the thing that gives it life; humans love to call it the first breath. Isn’t it beautiful to be able to give something its first heartbeat?

I have always wished to be like water. However, we humans were just so bedazzled by the ability to kill.

Now the water was running till my neck; it was interesting. Why? Wouldn’t you feel if you were drowning, child? I am now drowning, but it has never felt this easy before. Maybe water was not as harsh as humans in terms of killing, too. Now I see fished going up on water as I go down slowly, step by step. Water reaches up my mouth, nose, and now my eyes. Now I have entered the portal, into the underwater world.

I have always wished I was like water, fitting everywhere, turning into anything I wish to, healing this as well as drowning if I needed to.

I have always wanted to be like water; now I am drowning into a happily ever after.

The 2025 J.U.C. Awards | Dedication theme: #WaterActionDecade | Submitted Category: WRITING / Short Story | Submission Code: W9 #JUC2025 | Word count: 687

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