The Boy on The Cliff

The afternoon was chilly. It was a proper autumn day. A lost breeze bandied about the grass around the boy’s worn leather boots. The trees stood a distance back waving their arms. The contrast was striking between the tall trees behind and the grassy field ahead. It whipped through the boy’s mind that he had witnessed this phenomenon before. They always said they were having such fun. They would repeatedly beckon him over, yet they never walked the short distance to him. Not that I mind too much the boy thought. He never really felt like joining the fray only to become lost in endless chatter and laughing. Nobody sees the individual when the group necessarily looks to seek its collective ends rather than those of each person. This is all very well when people are inclined to give up certain desires in the name of the collective. Alas, that isn’t something I feel inclined to do very often. The boy cut his musings short so that he might adequately survey the landscape in its entirety. Rippling waves of grass moved on ahead only to be stopped short by the sky. A fine line, about a half-mile away, marked the cliff’s edge. Far below which the freezing ocean water lapped at the shore. It occurred to the boy that the water had been eating away at those cliffs for countless years and yet what did it have to show for its work? Perhaps a few inches of the high stone walls had crumbled into the ever-pulsing water. I wouldn’t do such repetitive work for such little gain he thought. The boy moved slowly and methodically toward the cliff’s edge. A thick layer of clouds obscured the sun while still allowing the sun to filter through. The result of this was a bright gloom. One who didn’t know any better might have thought a drizzle would soon start. However, the boy was very familiar with the scene before him. He had seen it many times before. It was like the emotion of melancholy in a person; often mistaken for sadness, instead, the boy thought of it as his neutral state. Why must one always be happy or sad? Isn’t it the best we can hope for to not be tossed about between these two extremes?

These thoughts drifted out of mind as the boy reached the edge of the grassy field. In just a few steps nothing but sky existed. The sound of waves being broken across rocks reverberated up to the boy. The spray that resulted from this repetitive occurrence was sent high into the sky. Some of the water was picked up by the breeze and was carried to the beach where seagulls poked about at the sand. The boy once again examined the landscape and the horizon. How does such chaos mix with tranquility? I suppose anything may look still until you put it under a microscope. The horizon looks so sure until you try to get to it. In its pursuit, you find any number of objects littering that fine line. The calm we perceive in our surroundings is likely due to our ability to zoom out, thinking of things as all-encompassing. Of course, we would almost certainly go mad if we didn’t group things based on context. We see the “mass of people” instead of each unique person that makes up the group. We perceive solids where only tiny atoms exist. One cannot always see the world this way. Yet when do we stop grouping and start seeing solid objects again? “Oh well, thoughts for another time,” the boy said aloud as he sat at the edge of the cliff, his feet dangling toward the water.