The beach

   Turtles moved slowly, from one end of the beach to the other. Their bodies were partly covered in white sand, as they moved through the wet area, as it had been washed by the sea for centuries or maybe more. It was a secluded beach, away from any urban settlement and disconnected from the world. There were no paths that led to the beach, as it bordered a large area filled with sharp stones that made it dangerous for people or even vehicles to cross the area. Only crabs and birds could overcome that obstacle.

 As for the ocean, the sea was extremely dangerous close to the shore. It seemed to be as peaceful as in other areas, but it could be able to swallow any ships that came too close to the beach. And as for swimmers, many had drowned trying to reach the precious strip of sand. Many had tried to do so in order to get to the turtles and the large crab colony that lived in the jagged rocks. They could become a great source of food for so many people that had sometimes nothing to eat.

 The region was composed of the same secluded beaches and areas where people could go and try to hunt for food. They were supposedly modern times but the government had no intention of sending food to those people or to help them do something to stop depending ravaging the natural areas they had close at hand. Actually, the whole area was a natural reserve, but those people were considered indigenous to the area, so they had every right to enter the reserve and grab whatever they wanted, including animals to eat.

 This right had been given because of their alleged traditions, which were mostly made up by people that did not really know the history of the area, and because of their small numbers and importance for the international community, which was dedicated to protecting all the native peoples of the world and the natural areas. So it was obviously a problem when they had to protect both things in the same place. One of the two was going to be in a disadvantage and, in this case, the natural reserve had everything to loose.

 It all became a lot worse when a horrible series of storm hit the coastal areas. The huts and homes of the local population were almost completely destroyed. Their access to drinkable water became non-existent and the small amount of food they had access to was also taken from them by the storm. So they grabbed the boats that hadn’t been destroyed and sailed to grab every single animal they could on the protected beaches. None of them doubted their actions for a second, as they captured crabs, turtles, fish and even smaller animals that they normally never ate.

 The government would take some time to get there, that’s if they ever came to see what had happened after the storms. So no one among those people was really worried about consequences. The problem came when several of them tried to sail to the inaccessible beach. They all sailed against the wind and the enraged ocean in order to plunder the richest part of the whole reserve. It could be assumed that many animals had realized that area was better for them; so many creatures had started calling it home.

 Most of the boats were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Not only the waves swallowed them whole, but whirlpools that formed when the ocean was especially calm also killed some of the men. However, a handful of them were able to cross the natural harshness of the ocean and landed on the beach. They started destroying it almost instantly. The blood of the turtles tainted the ocean in minutes and bags filled with crabs were carried to the remaining boats and to a makeshift chariot made with the rests of the shipwrecked boats.

 When they ended their destruction, just a few hours before sunset, only death remained on the beach. The remains of several animals rested there, even some creatures had been left there whole, not even taken partly by the men and women. They had been killed only because they were there and not because those people were hungry. It was just their thirst for destruction, which had led them to turn the most vibrant beach of the whole coats into a devastated piece of land, deprived of any kind of life.

  Leaving the beach was easier than entering it. The invaders soon discovered that with their boats and with the chariot that they had created. Soon, they arrived with the food to their homes and they only left some of it to be kept in an underground storage area. The rest was consumed in a few hours by men, women and children. They made large pots of turtle soup and ate the crab raw. They also cooked the other animals caught, including fish, monkeys, small mammals, insects and some other crustaceans found in shallow water.

 The people of the coast slept well that night. There was no sign of remorse; no sign that they regretted destroying a place they had claimed had been protected by their ancestors for ages. Some of them were not really indigenous, having their true origins in the cities beyond the reserve and the coast. They had come to that area to extract many of the valuable minerals that were hidden beneath the hills and close to the ocean. Eventually, after they hadn’t found much to make themselves rich with, they started relationships with indigenous peoples and formed the communities later protected in the coast.

 More storms ravaged the area, killing many animals but also a great part of the villagers that had destroyed the secluded beach. They were a series of hurricanes, that pulled trees from the roots, send rocks flying all over and destroyed every single thing that resembled a house in that region. After a few months, when the storm season finally ended, the government sent planes and boats to check on the area, as international pressure to protect those areas was getting more and more powerful after the storms arrived in the news.

 The first images that the world saw were the ones with the remaining villagers deprived of sweet water, places to sleep and live and food. They claimed they hadn’t eaten in a long time and that they had survived on coconuts and a few fish that came close to their coast. People all over the country donated to them, money and food that were carried by special places to their communities. The international community was proud to help to and the images went all over the globe, showing how people were still compassionate.

 However, the news cycles were rocked when a scientist found out, using satellite imagery, that the most well preserved beach of the reserve had been left completely lifeless. The carcasses of the turtles were still there, kind of covered by the sands. Helicopters were sent there when the images were made available and the government realized they had been taken for a ride. Actually, every single person involved with “saving” the communities close and inside the reserve had been completely lied to.

 The reserve soon had to be stripped from its status and the communities, or what was left of them, were left to mend for themselves. The area soon enough died away, its people and its animals too. And only storms were left to ravage the coasts mercilessly.

He came back

   Trekking the archipelago was an adventure, there’s no other way to describe it. They had always been there, available for everyone to go and just take the challenge. Technically, they were a national park but getting the permission to walk through the islands and sail was not impossible to get. The only condition that could annoy people would be the fact that a guide sent by the government office in charge of national parks would have to get a seat in the group that would be crossing the islands.

 Amak was the name of our guide and he was only the third member in our small party. I was one of the others. The second member would be my husband, the person that had initially thought of the trip. He had been dreaming about it for many years, as he had been trekking the world with his parents since he was a little kid. They were ecologists; so travelling around the planet was a common thing for him. He had a birthday on Mount Everest and his parents wedding had taken place in the Australian desert.

 Somehow, he had ended up marrying to a person like me, someone that rarely travelled more than a hundred kilometers away from his birthplace. I had only flown on a plane three times in my life and they had all been moments of a certain character, like birthdays and special occasions for my family. I had met him in college and, to be honest, I had never really liked him. He had the attention of every single person at every moment, he was the one all girls fell in love with and all guys admired.

 It was just like that until the very last semester; when we were almost forced to interact do to the impending arrival of that dreaded moment when you have to make a final paper to sum it all up at the end of the career. The problem, which I now see as a blessing, was that we had similar projects and we were convinced to do the work together and surrender it as a duo, instead of doing it all by ourselves. So we had to start seeing each other often and it was then when everything changed.

 We started seeing each other differently and I discovered he had an image of me, as I had formed a picture of him. Of course, both ideas were not complete or accurate, so it was kind of interesting to uncover that slowly. We became friends after the first few months and then we really got to working on our thesis. We came up with a lot of things together and, by the end of all that process, we discovered we had something very precious between each other, something that was much more special than a newfound friendship. It was the time we knew more feelings were involved.

 After college we separated for a while though, because he needed to go back to his parents who were living in Nepal in that time. I was sure that he wasn’t coming back to the city, so I decided to just be a nice friend before he left. He didn’t say much during those days, preferring to be silent and a little bit distant. When he left, I caught myself crying sometimes, in the most strange places and moments. I just dried the tears and pretended nothing was going on, lying to myself because it was easier that way.

 To my surprise, he appeared in my life again six months later, after a long time without communicating to me. We agreed on talking on a bar and the moment I saw him I felt everything again, as if he had never left. It was strange, so I decided not to act on any feeling and just enjoy the moment. And we did. He told me new stories about his parents and also some of his own, helping people in remote areas and enjoying nature and life at tits fullest. He seemed to have had a great time there and it was obvious he wanted to be there.

 So I asked him why had he came back? It was obvious that he had everything he wanted back with his parents, traveling the globe and enjoying life near nature. And he now had a career to help himself and his family, so it did not make any sense to come back to a place he didn’t like or appreciate it beyond some friendships and the career he had gotten. I turned a bit angry as I said that, but I tried to control myself as much as I could. My voice trembled and my hands were shaking visibly.

 He did the worst thing he could have done in that moment: instead of talking, of explaining himself, he put his hand on mine. I jumped from my seat, almost knocking over my glass full of beer. Everyone turned around to look at me and I was too embarrassed, so I left him there on his own. I walked back to my house, not that far away from the place we had been drinking in. I was enraged and on the verge of crying, my fists tightly closed and my jaw closing violently as if I wanted to destroy my own teeth.

 However, he ran to get to me. Again, he grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me. Instinctively, I launched a punch towards him but he dodged it and made me get closer to him, in a weird hug that he forced at first but then I corresponded slowly. I finally cried and asked him again why he had come back to that place, to me. Again, he answered with no words, something I’ve learned that he likes to do quite often. He kissed me right then and there, in the middle of the street and of the night. It didn’t last long but it was enough for me to let my defenses down and finally get calm.

 And now, year later, he convinced me to travel like he once did. I had no commitment with nay kind of work or with anyone, so he convinced me to work with him and his parents and sometimes only with him. He was the kind of person that helped remote communities stand on their own two feet. He helped them communicate with the world and get access to everything they needed to survive. He convinced me to go with him and I accepted, feeling maybe I needed to change my life decisively.

 That trip crossing the islands was just part of the fun, something to do before and after helping people. The first night, we hugged tightly and Amak slept as if he had never done that before. I realized it couldn’t be that bad to be in the middle of the wilderness with the one person that came back to me, looking precisely for me. He loved me and I felt that every day I was with him, even if he made me do things I didn’t particularly liked doing. I guess he felt I was able to do all that and he wanted me to dare a bit.

 I spent all of those days holding his hands, sometimes for some minutes, sometimes for much longer. I realized I really loved that man and I loved the way he did things and how he trusted in me much more than I did myself. He made me feel better than special. He made me feel I was worth it.

Changing lives

   Thomas had gotten used to working out almost every waking hour of the day. He would wake up very early in the morning, sometimes at five in the morning, in order to get dressed up fast, hop onto his wheelchair and then drive directly to the gym. He would help the owner open up shop and then he would spent the whole day in there, resting only once to have lunch in the gym’s cafeteria and sometimes to drink some water and other drinks he ingested in order to have proper level of vitamins and all of those.

 He had been invested in growing his strength since he had came back from his service overseas. He had lost one leg and had been in treatment for his other one for a long time. Actually, the only times he spent out of the gym or his house would be spent in the hospital, in his treatment. He would have some physical therapy and then receive several shots that would help his body deal with all the scars and, especially, with the psychological consequences of everything that had happened in the desert.

 In his team, he hadn’t been a leader or someone too important. He was just one of the guys, trying to realize the mission that had been entrusted to them. They had to patrol small towns and suburbs looking for terrorists, for people attempting to use their dwindling power to hurt a bunch of invaders. He had told those exact words to his psychiatrist, telling her that he understood how damaging their existence there was but that he was younger somehow, even when it had happened only a few months before.

 Thomas was a bit resentful of the full thing, having no intention of going back or of wanting to contact the other guys that had participated in the war with him. Even watching pictures he had taken there was awful, hurting his head and his insides. He even burned some of them, but his wife prevented him from doing it with the whole lot. She hid everything in a box, far from his reach in order to preserver things she thought he would need in the future. She thought she knew what was best for him.

But in reality, she had no idea. What he wanted was to build himself up again, to be strong and fit in order for the world not to be able to destroy him. When his foot blew up, he felt he was made of clay or something like that. He felt like something and not someone, like one little piece in a large game that didn’t care about people like him. And he didn’t want to be just that, he had grown fed up of the whole soldier life, only entering it because he needed the money they paid to help his family out. But he had other dreams, before all of that. Not anymore though.

 Everyone person that went to that gym had grown to know Thomas in one-way or the other. They all knew he was the guy without one foot but also as the guy that could spend almost two hours in the same weight station. It was amazing to see him sweat but not care too much about it, going on and on. Many asked him for advice and he would give it to them but he was always clear about not letting them getting too close. He didn’t want any friends or anything of the sort. He didn’t want to compromise at all.

 That’s why his relationship with his wife had grown sour and stale. They didn’t have sex anymore and she claimed it wasn’t because of his accident but he felt that wasn’t the case. However, he was honest with himself and he knew he had relinquished any need for sexual relationships.  He had no interest in them, even if his penis proved to be working still. His doctors had assured him he could have children if he wanted to, but the truth was that he had no intention to have any kids.

 He wasn’t interested in living the life they had always wanted for him. His family, his wife, his friends in his soldier team and everyone else thought that knew what he needed in his life, what he had to and how he had to do it. And he had done exactly that for a long time, accepting the life he had been almost forced to live. But now he felt free somehow, he felt that by losing a part of himself, he had allowed real freedom to enter his life. It finally felt like he had a reason to live and not just go by.

 One day, his wife finally exploded in a fit of rage. She broke some plates and threw the box filled with his pictures and medals to his face. She yelled and demanded some action from him, something to tell her he was still the same man she had married. But the truth was that he wasn’t and he told her exactly that. He also said that he would be picking up his things and that he would be happy to sign any papers she wanted him to sign. He wheeled himself out of the house and then left for the gym.

 That night, he went back home to find it empty. She had probably left for her mother’s house or something. He stood up from the chair and decided right then and there that he didn’t need it anymore. He would get some crutches and then a prosthesis for his disappeared foot. He didn’t wanted to stay as a cripple, he needed to take the freedom he had been granted and use it to make whatever he wanted in life with it. He put all of his things on a few boxes, carried them to the car and then drove right into a motel to sleep for the night. It was the best night sleep he had in a long time.

 A few weeks later, he signed the papers his former wife’s lawyer had for him in his office. He was using the crutches then and had already sign up to get a prosthetic foot. It was going to cost a lot but him being a retiree from the army would get him some kind of discount. He was happy that day, celebrating the whole thing with one of his only friends, the owner of the gym. He was already thinking of getting a job, when his friend told him he would be welcome to work as a trainer in the gym. Thomas accepted in a heartbeat.

 He eventually got a nice little house, he was enjoying himself a lot at work and was even open to having new friends and maybe even a romantic relationship. He had built his body to be the one he wanted and now he was doing all he could to be the guy he had always wanted to be as desires and wishes go. He was finally himself and that made him smile from time to time, especially at those times he was alone and he remembered everything that had happened in his life and how much could still happen.

 Thomas was eager for more.

A dream of biology

  Mary drew the shape of the rhinoceros as fast as she could. The beast was not moving at all but she knew she had to be fast if she wanted to fill her sketchbook with drawings. She had already seen a zebra and also an elephant, from afar. She had also done some landscapes, although she was fed up of doing those. Back in school, that’s all they did. Just walks and walks to draw mountains and a prairie and homework like drawing what you could see from your bedroom window or from the kitchen or from the bathroom.

 Coming to Africa was a surprise from her father. She rarely saw him around, as he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in the country. He was always in some exotic location and he would often mail her beautiful handwritten letters with at least one curious thing inside. He would often mail her feathers from birds that no person in Europe had ever seen, but he would also encase in the envelope a couple of leaves from some rare plants or a complete flower, dried up from the journey on the plane.

 She had kept all of those treasures in a small shoebox in her closet. She would often look at all of it and just sigh, thinking both about her father and about the kinds of adventures she could have once she had graduated from a good university and then study even more. She knew very well how hard her parents had to work to achieve the milestones they had arrived to, but sometimes she hated to be so young and silly. Mary wanted to have all those grownup things right then and there, no more wait.

 Her mother had always been the patient kind. Her name was Debra and she was the one in charge of raising them properly. She also had a job though, so she left at the same time than the children in the mornings and she would return a couple of hours after the school bus had dropped at home She was a very kind woman that enabled them to explore the world and be open about everything. So open that when Mary’s little brother Devon said he liked one of his school friends who was a boy, she was understanding and supportive.

 No one knew if Devon’s crush for his friend was real or something that should be looked at, but that wasn’t the important part of the whole thing. The issue was that they had great parents that tried to make them see that the world was truly open to them and that they could do whatever they wanted, if they wanted to become better people and even help others be better too. That’s why both kids would often go camping in the summer and would be encouraged to join clubs at school. That didn’t make them the best students ever, but it made them curious and that was more than enough for their parents.

 The only thing that had always bothered Mary was the fact that his father had never wanted her or her brother to join him in one of his trips. Of course, she had only wanted to go to one of the shorter ones or maybe something in the summer. But no matter how long it took or where they would have to go, both their parents’ answers were two resounding “no”. Her brother, of course, was too young still to go and do those things. At eight, he barely knew what the world was really about. But Mary was seventeen and she had already decided that she wanted to be a biologist.

 He dream was to be able to discover many new animals and help classify them and protect them. That was her life plan and she had even discussed it with her parents, who had been very supportive up until she had requested for a spot in her father’s next trip to China. She felt she had been very close to convincing him but her mother’s last words, something about school and being a woman, made her father decide against it. She had been very mad with her mother that summer, so much so that they didn’t speak at all.

 Of course it was all related to her father. She was very aware that one of her reasons to go and explore with him was the fact that she felt she didn’t really knew him that well. He was a kind man and very intelligent too, but anyone that worked with him could say that. She wanted to know him properly, as people and not as an adult and a child. There was no real connection when he came and visited because, every time he was with them, it didn’t feel as if he lived there at all. He was just hanging around.

 They only had a couple of very deep conversations, all of them regarding animals and the trips his father had taken. She could hear him for hours, talking about the new creatures he saw and how they were careful enough to preserve every single shred of new things they encountered. He even told her about the other people on his explorations, must of which were always unknowns to her and her brother. They would visit sometimes but would always only talk to their parents, have coffee and then run back out.

 When the Africa trip came up, Mary couldn’t believe her ears. It was so shocking to her that she started laughing hysterically. Once things calmed down, her mother explained that they had been talking about her dream of becoming a biologist and they had concluded that it was necessary for her to have real life experience, on the field. Coincidentally, his father had some things to do in a national park in Botswana in the summer, so the whole family would be able to go with him and just enjoy a couple of weeks as if they were actually working with their patriarch.

Preparing for the journey had been a chore: clothes had to be bought, suitcases had to be taken out of the attic and caretakers for their pets had to be found. Once the two cats and the dog had someone to live with for the time they would be out, everyone got a bit less stressed. However, they had to be smart about what they would pack because, after all, they weren’t going to a beach or some beautiful city to walk and take selfies. They were going where the wild things were and it was necessary to be objective.

 Mary was the first one to have her suitcase ready. Her mother requested to check if everything was in order and she was not so surprised to see that her daughter was taking the trip very seriously. She was so proud of her that she took her to the mall in order to buy some supplies: a large sketchbook and a big box of colored pencils, as well as a smaller case with only normal pencils with different degrees of granite. It was the best gift Mary had ever received and she hugged her mother tight, which was a rare occurrence.

 They were not really one of those hugs and kisses families. They were the kind to remain together and respect each other, but physicality was not at all involved in their interactions. Mary’s hug was something spontaneous, out of sheer joy because everything she had always wanted was happening at the exact same time. It was fun and it was happy, so much so that she even helped her little brother packed and talked about his crush for a short while. It was nice to feel they were more than just siblings.

 The plane ride felt too long and strenuous. The moment they landed and met their father in the terminal, Mary knew it was the thing she had always waited for. From that moment on, she was always very perceptive of anything near her. She would carry a backpack with her sketchbook, pencils and camera, plus some other things that she needed in order to really prove herself on the field. Her father would check on her work at the end of each day and he would always nod and then kiss her goodnight.

 She needed much more from him but she had no idea how to ask him that. She couldn’t just do it because, by doing so, she would probably break the very fragile and interesting relationship they had. She wanted to build on top of what existed and not tear everything apart to try again.

However, she reminded herself every night that they were going to stay there for almost and entire month. She was going to have all the time she needed to really prove herself to be as good as her parents. She needed to do it but she also wanted to do it. She never put herself out of the equation.