He had only seen the ocean once in his life- in someone's untameable blue green eyes- and ever since then he had told himself that there is where all good soul reside after death.

    The wind danced on his skin, his hair a halo of sunlight. He stood on a cliff, allowing the smell of salt and sorrow to overtake his senses. It had been so long.... He wondered how years could be so tricky, falling through your fingers like the fine white sand below. The waves sang like nothing he had ever heard, like bells made of hope and despair. And as he gazed at the ocean all the tears came flooding back like the tides.

    He was falling. Falling into the sea- no. Falling into his eyes. Those criticizing
untameable blue green eyes. He was falling into that whispering voice. The words that scream from those eyes. "Your sin is that you are alive. Why don't you just die?" Deeper, deeper, the kind of feeling that cannot be erased or washed away by salt water.

    He was drowning. Drowning in the past, drowning in the water, drowning in his tears. There was no gasping for breath, only a deafening sense of unreality. He was a wilting petal caught timelessly in blue green glass. And all he could think was how he was right- this is where his immortal soul will lie. "Why don't you just die?" No! No, he can't possibly do what that man whispered. There are things you cannot obey, like the blue green of your father's flaming eyes.

    "Father, I have sinned. I continue to live as all you love die. And as selfish as it is, I will go on. This is my grave, but only for my past." His head broke through the water with a sparkling sigh. Even his tears got lost and drifted away in the waves. He took his first breath. And just as each man begins his journey on earth, there was pain and there was darkness, but all birth begins with hope.