Devonne Brown

Everlastingly

“Hurry up. If you leave right now, you can make it to the cottage by dark. Everybody will already be there for the meetings tomorrow. Seeya there. 204 Howe St., Emerald Isle.” 

I hung up the phone. O boy. Meetings, I get to go to meetings. At least they were at the beach. I could live with meetings on the ocean. Even a mile from the coast, the air is better, but these meetings were a block from the breakers, negative ionization was imminent. There would be a positive air exchange even if I did have to go be the treasurer for two days. 

I warned these folks that I didn’t do numbers. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, it’s that I had a numerical disability. Numbers never behaved the same way twice, like letters did. The rules of numbers just didn’t make sense to me. 

Those folks just shook their heads and said, “Nah, don’t worry about it, we’ll help you figure it out. It’s no big deal.”

Three hours to go to the beach, and I was looking forward to the stress of being treasurer so I could destress on the sand. It was a perfect situation. I would work my anxiety up into a nuclear monolith and walk on the edge of the water where the sand is hard and pick up shells, or the boardwalk and watch people, or whatever struck my fancy. I might even drink too much. I had such delightful options, it didn’t matter. The car phone rang. “It’s off. All off. No meetings. No beach.” the folks on the other end of the line said.

“Very funny, I’ll be there in two hours. What do you need me to bring?” I asked. 

“No. It’s over. It’s not happening.”

I’d been reading signs for the bridge between the Sound, and Emerald Isle, and Shrimp Burgers miles back. I’d never gone on vacation by myself before. It wasn’t dark yet, I’d be able to find a cool place to stay on the ocean.

It was going to happen.

I needed my feet in the sea so the waves could pull the sand away from my feet. I heard Wordsworth’s words in my heart.

“The mighty being is awake and doth with his eternal motion make a sound like thunder, everlastingly.” 

If I close my eyes and repeat the line over and over, I hear the iambic pentameter of the line act like the waves. Iambic pentameter, ten syllables of two syllable units, the first syllable of each unit is accented, the second unaccented. (Should you care.) The word “everlastingly” sounds cool when drawn out and hissed at the end when spoken to mimic the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. The line is genius, everlastingly.