Jason's Ocean

​Jason worked a shop on the coast of a Greek island. It was one of the smallest islands in the country, but it was certainly the most beautiful. Having being born to an English mother one of her last wishes before she passed from blood loss that her son be named Jason. His father, the old owner of the shop, did just that and that was about the only thing he did for Jason.

​When the old man died he left Jason the store, not having anyone else except a spiteful sister who he hated with a passion. In the end, it was his indifference towards Jason that made him for more eligible to be the new owner than his sister. Jason took the store happily, desperate for work other than fishing. So, that’s all that Jason did until he was fifty-two, was sell trinkets to tourists and basic groceries to locals.

Jason had no wife or fathered any children, so he knew well enough that when he passed the store would most likely be taken by the government if he left it to nobody. Jason was not to distraught by this idea. He spent his free-time staring at the ocean across the beach from his store. It roared some days, but most were calm and melancholy.

Jason longed to have known what love felt like. He felt none from the people, none from his father and the brief moment of love he was given he was too young to realize before his mother was taken away. Jason’s ocean was his therapy to these thoughts. He had nothing else to keep his mind intact and his heart going strong. When it came time to close the store one day he meandered out of the front door and walked down to the white sand.

He sat down then, a man who was plagued with an aging body that gave him pains so few understood, and stared into the waters. The sun was cool that day, so he sat there longer and pondered his life. Every day for decades he stood behind that counter, selling people the same trinkets while the same song played on the broken radio.

His heart was weakening, ambitions never achieved and he felt the overwhelming sense that he was just another cog in somebody else’s machine. In those crushing thoughts there was only one saving grace. The ocean before him did not judge him any different from the most successful or happy man.

He had dedicated his entire life to pouring his sorrow into the ocean, to sighing with each curling wave and to shouting his every frustration into the storms. Now, when his heart pounded so suddenly, ready to give way after all this time, the ocean responded with kindness.

Like the waves that came and receded, time for Jason receded and his years returned to him in strength. The old man that sat on the beach, realizing he was a man who never tried to achieve a single one of his ambitions. With that sad thought he stood and walked home, each step he took taking several years off his age till he stood on the side of the street, at the age of eighteen.
It was only when he realized how baggy his clothes were that he saw how young he became. In a panicked and excited moment he ran home, entering his bathroom to stare into the mirror at his young face. The beard he had grown had turn black with his hair, his wrinkles smoothed out, but his eyes still seemed to hold the same sorrow.

Jason blinked and the wall behind him changed to the familiar ocean. He knew now who this precious gift came. He knew now that the sorrows he shared with his only friend had been received. More than that, he had been comforted as the ocean took his years for itself.

Jason took it as a sign that he should push himself to achieve his greatest ambitions. Being so young and knowing what he knew now it became little trouble for Jason to leave the country and pursue all that interested him.

Jason became a mariner, a writer, a builder, a musician, a lover, husband, a father, a widow, a grandfather and eventually, he became old again. Jason had created a saga that so little could compare to, but he still held so much in his heart unfulfilled.

Jason returned to the ocean in Greece and sat on the sands once more in front of his store. He told the ocean what he did, he told the ocean all that came to be thanks to years that he had been given. However, despite all that he achieved, there was still a sadness in his heart. Once more, Jason walked away from the ocean, a young man.

Jason became a scoundrel, a drinker, a fighter, a druggy, a killer and a truly broken man in his purest form. He escaped back to Greece, older than he left it, but far younger than he was when he returned. He walked back onto the beach and apologized to the ocean.

He knew now, with so many people in this world hating him, searching for him, wanting to punish him, that the years he had been given were not meant to be spent away from the one he loved. He turned to his shop and instead of his age being shortened, his original age returned along with the time.

As of the past century never, Jason lugged a small fishing boat from his shop to the water’s edge. Climbing inside it, he floated gingerly onwards, with the thoughts of who is was in his previous lives being accepted by his heart. Jason was now a man that he wanted to be without ever really being that man. The ocean, happy in its soul to know this, gave Jason the gift of a peaceful, happy death as it carried onwards towards an afterlife where the ocean and Jason could be together always, treasured for what they were.