Not yet, Not now.

The beach was uncharacteristically empty. Not a soul to be seen, no hawkers plying their trade, stray dogs looking for scraps of food, nothing at all. Maybe it was the rain, for it had been pouring incessantly for the past two days. But even then, you would find somebody on the sandy expanse. Not today, though. 
The place looked ethereal. The sandy shore merging seamlessly into the white froth which stretched and gushed until it became the blue expanse of the depths and the blue expanse becoming the grey of the stormy sky at the point where the two worlds seem to meet. It seemed like it was all the same thing. Just taking different forms to throw out the illusion of separation. 
The rain poured on, with no intention of ceasing. The angry drops becoming one with the sand, sea, and sky, alike. 
He walked towards the waves, his own thoughts merging and separating incomprehensibly. The grey sky reflecting his condition. Drab, melancholy, and neither here nor there. He seemed to have made up his mind, which is why he was here in the first place and each step he took towards the waves seemed to make him more and more sure. 
It wasn’t like he had suffered major hardships or that life had been unfair, no. He just didn’t have anything to do. Nothing. And he longed for adventure, longed to do something out of the ordinary, longed for going to far off places. And life didn’t entice him in doing any of those, nor at this point did it seem to provide him with avenues catering to his wants. So his mind was made up. ‘I’m going on an adventure, he told himself’, a wry smile on his face. 
As his feet touched the waves, he saw a woman, picking shells off the shore. ‘Strange’, he thought, for he didn’t see her until then. He then felt it was probably because he was so lost in his thoughts and banished the thought. 
She seemed not to notice him and went on picking shells off the shore, so engrossed in what she was doing, and he watched her nimbly pick those colourful pieces with her pale hands, a stark contrast. 
‘Do you live around here?’ He asked her, after watching her for a while. ‘I used to’, she said, not even bothering to turn and look at him, still picking shells up. He shrugged, and looked at the ocean, again, and took a couple of steps forward towards it. ‘You know’, he heard her say ‘If you are looking for adventure, you can forget it.’ He turned toward her,  startled, to find her finally giving him her full attention. Her face was difficult to describe, it was beautiful, no doubt, but seemed so disturbed, even though it looked peaceful. It was like the two were at war, within her, each not letting the other get the upper hand. The result was such sadness, it made his eyes well up with tears. 
‘What do you mean?’ He finally managed to ask, the thunder shaking him out of his reverie. ‘What you already know.’, she whispered. ‘I went looking for it, too, and I got nowhere, for you go nowhere, till a while.’ She came toward him, and he stood, mesmerized as her ice cold hand gripped his and dropped a few shells in his palm. ‘It’s all an illusion’. She said ‘Turn away, or you’ll be picking up these shells, dead pieces of what was once alive, for a long long time.’ He looked down at his palm, at the coloured pieces and dropped them, suddenly, afraid of the way they were bereft of life. He looked back up and she had vanished, but the wind seemed to echo her last words to him as the ocean whispered invitingly, behind him. 
He let her words reverberate in his head as he began to walk away from the waves, back to himself. He whispered a soft thanks to her as he let the rain wash away his tears, and as he looked back at the alluring ocean one more time, he told himself ‘Not yet, Not now.’