If you travel along the eastern coast of Madagascar, about an hour south of Sante Luce, you will arrive at a beach just north of Taolagnaro. There is a little village which runs right up to the seaside; it is nameless. There are many wonderful things here to behold, but there is something, or rather someone, there who can change lives. Please listen to his story, unfortunately it is true.
In this village there lives an old man, skin ravaged from the sun, lips baked black and hands of shaking sinew. He lives alone in one of the better kept beachside huts, and he comes to the beach every day. He walks down in the morning, stretching from head to toe; his baggy skin betraying the bones beneath. He heads for the shore and seats himself about forty feet from the crashing waves. Here he begins clawing at the sand with his crooked hands. He strains and pulls lump after lump of sand into an enormous pile. Then he begins another and another until he sits back with three such mounds placed equidistant around himself. He breaks and rubs his hands together. The mornings are always cold here and his bones are weary from this early strain. He smiles to himself, basking in the pleasure of his early progress, and no doubt in anticipation of the progress to come.
And now he begins to pull the collected sand into his middle area. He works the substance into a huge foundation and then falls into a trance, expert hands working quickly to assemble the immense castle; it is as if the image in his head is being realized on earth and his body is merely the channel for this realization. He works with manic energy and soon a castle is rising from the ground, elaborate turrets crowning the fortifications. No detail is left out; the stables house miniature horses, knights joust in the courtyard and a maiden sighs from her bedroom balcony. The castle is astonishing, a model of such extravagance and detail that even the most mundane of passersby stoop in perplexed admiration for hours.
He now becomes aware of the waves falling gently upon his ankles, and turns to see that the water has risen to edge of the castle walls. He works more frantically, shaking the beaded sweat from his forehead and forcing his tired hands on to an even greater pace. The water fills the outside moat as the twin spires climb higher into the sky. The sea now has claimed his walls and the inner courtyard begins to fill with foamy liquid. Knights fall heavily from their steeds as the water begins to drown the first floor. His hands work with frightening energy now, and intricate gargoyles materialize atop the spires. The water pulls at the lower walls, and the maiden’s cries become more and more urgent. The turrets slump now in formless lumps as the artisan crowns roofs with weathercocks. He is mounting a statue of Apollo in the feast hall, when the first floors heave dramatically to the ground. The spiral staircase cascades downwards in a pile as the water pounds upon the castles walls. The wondrous forms which he has created now are being claimed by the crashing waves; tiled floors are washed away, laughing children crushed into obscure humps. The old man is molding banisters when the structure finally surrenders to its inevitable fate. It leans treacherously and falls with a splash into the now deep waters. Bubbles rise slowly from its grave as the liquid works its way through passages and floors, crawling beneath beds and around chandeliers. The man rises from his knees now and traces the last of the bubbles as they rise from the surface. His face is blank as he plods back to his hut.
A tale simply of tragedy to most who pass him by. A tale of beauty and art crushed by the forces of a massive and unstoppable nature. Perhaps one might even see the triumph of formlessness over art, the inevitable progress of entropy. Perhaps you will see how romantic a character the old man is, how he persevered even in the face of chaos and how he worked his art not for the sake of posterity or fame. These lessons many carry with them from the beach, but I, I made the error of staying at one of the huts overnight. I looked out from my balcony the next morning and was arrested by the sight that was before me. The old man was crouched in the sand, three piles of the material around him, his hands working quickly at the foundations of a building. I shook my head in disbelief and rushed out to the shore.
I stood over him, dumbfounded to perceive him repeating the motions of yesterday.
“Did you not learn from the events not a day ago?†I cried. “The sea will rise and will claim all that you build.†He turned from his work and smiled at me with assurance:
“Of course the tide will rise, but that does not take away the joy of creating. You see these stables here; I will put strong horses in them and a little stable boy too. These courtyards will be filled with cheery knights and ladies. I will build a castle for myself with ball rooms and feast halls. I will have towers and balconies, and beauteous statues to stand upon these walls.†He spoke with such excitement that I could not help but become carried away as he was. Indeed I felt a giddy warmth steal upon me as I imagined the things we would do and build. Then I turned to look upon the ocean, and recalled the rising tides of yesterday. The inevitability of destruction rushed back to my conscious and I threw my arms up in despair.
“Don’t you see this ocean, these rising waves? No matter what you do they will take your castle and everything you will have done will be destroyed. Think for a moment on your project of yesterday. If you had not built that castle, nothing would have changed. This morning the beach would have looked the same, the ocean and the sand, all the same. So you see, your actions were meaningless, you might as well have lain upon the beach or even stayed at home. These tides will claim everything you create, so do not continue talking blindly of knights and ladies when you know they will be destroyed. Raise your eyes from this creation and look at the tide, do not stoop like a fool and ignore fate, but rather know what will be and see your ambitions for what they truly will become: utterly fruitless!â€
The old man turned from his castle once again and looked in my eyes. His gaze shamed me, I know not why. “Listen man, you act, I act; we all go on acting. Yet surely you must feel destiny behind you; perhaps you should take your own advice and look up from your projects, for the waves are already lapping upon your ankles my friend.â€
I was a young man at the time, vacationing with my young wife. I was building many beautiful and elaborate things: a home, a family and a business. Now sometimes I lose myself enough in life to forget about the rising tide. But these are but momentary enthusiasms, and they last only so long as the noise of waves is drown out. For inevitably I realize that the forms I create have no lasting existence. When the horseman crashes to the floor and becomes one with the masses of amorphous sand, who will argue that he still exists? Who will say even that the sand which was him is different than the sand that is all around him? It is no different, there was never creation. Oh Jesus I see now the ocean, and wish I never did. I cannot create in the face of oblivion as the old man can, so I will sit on the beach and wait for the rising tide, outliving myself.