She had been mesmerized by the smell and the sound of the waves and the vast expanse of murky blue that was not only a moving color but actually a well of living organisms—fish and algae and octopuses and whales—all moving through their lives unaware of the terrestrial world above it. Knowing also that somewhere at the end of the ocean an entirely different continent of people stared into the same abyss of water and distance and time comforted her. A universal aloneness and yearning.
