Painted Cliffs

I was lying on my back pressed against the boat’s deck when I saw the cliffs. My eyelids lifted and at first, it was just a blur of colors. Someone had taken a paintbrush to these walls. Dripped orange and black and white and let the colors run until the drops hit the ocean and became waves. 

I sat up and sweat streamed down my spine. Afternoon light glinted on the cliffs. In places, sun charred the rock. In others, blotches of red whispered how the sun had once set the mineral on fire. The ocean must have rose to drench the flames in salt. 

The cliffs’ secret history was scattered across its crevasses. Our boat drifted parallel to its stories and I realized my hands would never trace the rock. Humidity-saturated air and plunging water divided us. I tilted my head towards the sea’s horizon. It was easier to look out at stretching emptiness. 

When I turned back, the colors had almost faded into blue sky and bluer ocean. We had floated far. The cliffs had arched their ridges towards the water. Curved their backs until their lips touched the sea and they disappeared beneath it. 

That night, when our anchor clenched the ocean’s floor and I threw my body off the deck, I tried to bend until the sea covered me, but each time it pushed me back towards air. Made me float. When the sun slipped behind the earth, I dried my body under the stars. There weren’t any colors.