1 1. The waves

In the middle of the night, the moon was bigger and brighter than usual, and yet barely visible, with her black hair resting still in the vastness of space. She stretched her smooth pearl neck and directed her big dark brown eyes towards the color-orgasmic surface of the earth. A small boat in the port of St Cristobal started moving up and down, slowly. The sea waves in the distant open waters, thousands and thousands of miles away, rose calmly at first then started forming, step-by-step, an ever-growing mass. As the water mount grew bigger, the waves became increasingly menacing, picking-up speed, becoming less and less uniform, deformed, savage, uncontrollable. And then, out of the blue, they rested for a moment, as if suspended in the air; the law of gravity having taken a brief holiday from earth. As if they had paused to think, to contemplate. As if they had to take a moment in order to think carefully about something. Silence covered all. Everything took a break and waited. The moon, unapproachable, shining silver-white, completely lonely, the sole planet in an ocean of sparkling stars, held her breath and looked at the spectacle developing in front of her eyes. Her heart beating at its highest tempo in months, years maybe, sucked-in by a magnetic force caressing gently her cheeks like a soft draft of air, enticing her to have a closer look at something as yet undefined.

The waves stormed down with the strength of a thousand hurricanes, with the crackling noise of a hundred thunders, moving in light-speed, ready to devour everything, to demolish and to destroy, to take over and to annihilate. They came closer and closer to St Cristobal, giant skinny hands with their fingers stretched as far as possible, their veins in full alert, popping out, strong, ugly; the small boat now starting to rock gently. The moon looked almost scared, forcing herself to watch, but not really wanting to look. Forcing herself to observe, without knowing the reason why. The waves regrouped, forming a huge ridge of water and once again came-down crashing, with an overwhelming strength, an even bigger appetite to chomp through everything in their passage. The small boat had by now started to really move, up and down, left and right in a distinctly disharmonious way. An absolutely enormous mountain-top of waves had since been formed. It stood ready to attack when, suddenly, the moon realized that it was her, the cause of it all. She was responsible for what was taking place on the waves front. She found herself embarrassed, surprised and very uncomfortable, knowing she had generated all this commotion. Not sure what she was doing exactly or why, she forced herself to stop. She took immediately several steps to reduce the strength of the waves, but strangely enough did nothing to actually stop them. The waves sped-down regardless, and began their descent, this time in a smoother, more regular but equally vicious fashion; the small boat definitely felt that.

The first batch of waves crashed loudly on a rock formation outside the port. The moon shocked at their intensity, went on full alert. This time, she absolutely had to stop the waves. It was necessary, it was essential and it was, of course, too late. The boat had no time to react to what was happening around him, he laid there completely unaware of what nature had in store for him, when he suddenly felt something. It was like a warning, a wake-up call, a message. It was as if someone had just pinched him. He noticed for the first time the moon and felt deeply attracted to her, his eyes stuck, unmoving, in her direction. The small boat was being drawn to the moon, as if a mega-magnet had been pointed at him. The moon did the same, overwhelmed by a shower of contradictory feelings. Simultaneous feelings of uncertainty and of confidence, of appetite for risk and lack of commitment, showered the moon which was continuing to find it hard to comprehend the reason behind this confusion of hers. She had a clear, well-defined power over the waves but it appeared she was totally powerless to whatever was now happening in her mind and in her heart. There was also something else. The moon felt no need to do something about her current state; the exact opposite of what had happened with her and the waves. She did not need to do something because it was the boat's turn to act. It was time for the moon to get onboard and get carried away. It was time to abandon her powers, it was time to lose control and it was time for her to go against everything she once knew and believed in, even nature.

The waves entered the port, strong, powerful, forceful, ungrateful and unforgiving. Neither the moon nor the boat understood all that much at that point, being too committed to each other, too absorbed by each other's presence to understand what was happening around them. Everything shook and everything moved and everything was displaced and everything was turned upside-down and still those two remained indifferent, unaware, undeterred and oblivious. The waves from their side, looked at the moon and the boat in disappointment and anger; a stare of lust for revenge now in their eyes. They were not going to let those two get away with it so easily. No one had dared resisting them before and as sure as hell, no one was going to start doing so now. But the moon and the boat, the boat and the moon, could not have cared less, it seems. They were connected, attached, committed and emotionally glued to each other. Even without knowing yet a single thing about one another.