Tales the tides kept

I have seen people come and go for years, footsteps that kiss my shore for a moment and vanish with the next wave. Lovers, families, wanderers, loners, they all visit me. Some come to celebrate beginnings, some to bury endings. But among all those who walk across my sands, there was one who never left.

A boy.

He lived in a tiny cottage that leaned toward me. His grandmother, the only family he had, would sit by the door, humming soft lullabies that floated down to me with the evening wind. The boy was small when I first knew him, his feet sinking into my warmth as he picked up shells I offered each morning. From them, he made necklaces and bracelets, stringing them with quiet patience. That was his world: shells, sea, and survival.

He sold his creations to the people who came to visit me, tourists, young couples, families with children who laughed as the waves chased them. Some paid with smiles, some with pity. Yet he never complained. When the day ended, he would sit near the waves, speaking softly to me, as if I could understand. And perhaps I did.

As years passed, the grandmother grew weaker. Her once-steady hands trembled when she tried to weave baskets. The boy took care of her. He cooked, fetched water, mended the roof when the rains came. I watched him grow from a barefoot child into a thin, quiet young man whose eyes still carried the same innocence.

Then one monsoon, the waves grew restless. The sky turned black, and I raged against the shore in grief and thunder. The boy ran out, trying to protect the little cottage from the rising water. He screamed for his grandmother to stay inside, but the wind stole his voice. The waves reached higher, creeping towards the land.

By dawn, the storm had passed. The cottage stood half-broken, and the boy knelt beside what the sea had taken. His grandmother’s frail body lay motionless. He held her for a long time, whispering words I could barely hear. For the first time, I wished I could pull back and undo what I had done. But the sea never gives back what it takes.

After that day, he stopped selling shells. He barely spoke. He sat by the water every evening, carving small figures out of driftwood, tiny boats, birds, stars. He placed them gently on my waves, watching them float away. One day, he carved two small figures: a boy and an old woman sitting together. He set them on a piece of wood and let them drift into my waves.

That night, he didn’t return home. When the sun rose, I saw him sitting at the edge of the water, motionless, his face turned toward the horizon. The tide crept up around him, slowly, tenderly, until he was part of me.

Days later, a few villagers found his empty cottage. On the windowsill lay a shell necklace, beside a note. The paper was damp and blurred, but a few words remained:

“She always wanted to see the sea up close.”

And so, she did.

Now, every dusk, I see two silhouettes walking along my edge: one tall, one small, their laughter carried softly on the wind.

And I, the beach, hold their footprints longer than anyone else’s