When you get asked, “Oh hey, what is your biggest fear?,” the things that come to mind are endless, like the fear of spiders, snakes, heights, the dark, clowns, germs. The list is never ending! When I think of it, my mind always runs towards the unknown, specifically the ocean.
No one really knows what is out in the world, especially what lurks in the ocean. It’s easy to tell ourselves that it’s just water, but the truth is even deeper (no pun intended). The ocean is full of so many things we have yet to discover. So when you are out there surfing or swimming, you never know that one day you might come upon a new species.
In case you didn’t know, we have yet to explore the entire ocean. So when you are in the water and something hits your foot you can just shrug it off and say it was a stick, leaf, and even a small piece of trash. However, at the end of the day you never truly know what it was. I know for me it freaks me out because it can range from a seaweed to maybe even an alligator.
It’s a huge fear of mine going into any body of water that is not clear enough, to the point that I can’t see the floor. It’s not even the fact of what kind of creatures are in there, even if that is a small part of it, it’s the fear of the creature we have yet to come upon. I have seen many movies of creatures that glow in the dark like flickering lanterns, jaws lined with translucent teeth, and even bodies so strange they seem apart from nightmares, almost as if it was some sleep paralysis figure.
As a matter of fact the ocean needs no monsters. It is one in itself.
I used to be the biggest fan of the water and going out far in the ocean. I just loved the sound of waves. When I needed to have a calming place the sound would be in the background, it was calm and peaceful. When you listen closely however, it sounds like breathing. Slow. Deep. Patient. As if something was waiting out in the depths of the sea.
Then comes the silence. The endless silence and darkness. That’s when it feels alive where you hear nothing but the ocean as if it was like a heartbeat. As if something was underneath waiting for you to go in. No matter how hard you look down in the ocean, the light at the bottom is not seen. It takes all the shadows away from what it chooses to hide. We never think of it like that though, we think it’s just the sound of waves, which brings calmness to us.
Everyone says that the ocean is harmless and it’s nothing but peaceful. But a peaceful ocean would not pull you down nor make your flashlight flicker when you sense something behind you or even when something brushes against your leg when you are out scuba diving or swimming.
You can lie to yourself and say “Oh, it was just seaweed. Nothing bad.” You can always lean towards telling yourself there’s nothing down there. But the ocean will always have more to share and more unknown creatures that await for someone whose curiosity spikes them to find out more about what is yet to be seen. And that is when the unknown of the ocean comes out.
Maybe that’s why the ocean frightens us more than any haunted house. It’s not just what we know is down there and what we see on T.V., but It’s what we don’t.
So next time you are out at sea swimming and you feel something off, just like the dark forest, don’t stay too long and instead leave and don’t look down or back.
So, as you carve your pumpkins and tell scary stories this Halloween, just remember that the scariest monsters aren’t always lurking in the graveyard, the forest, or even under your bed. Sometimes they’re waiting just as quietly deep and far in the sea.
