Chapter Text
‘Dive, grasshopper! Dive!’ My brother’s deep baritone voice carried loudly over the waves from where he was lounging on the flat rocks of the island we liked to hang out on. I took another deep gulp of air before I dove lower once more. The Great Ocean was cold but felt nice to my suntanned skin, as it was a scorching hot summer day in Honolulu.
I had almost reached the bottom, almost attained the treasure he had buried for me on the ocean floor. The glimmering surface of the golden squared box was reflecting in the sunlight and casting an eery glow on the sandy surface below me. I felt my throat closing up just before the box was in my reach, fingertips barely brushing it. I kicked my legs back as hard as I could. The waterline above me sparkling, a deep sun shattered in the sky, rippled by the waves. In my mind I saw myself finally reaching the treasure chest and coming up to my brother’s proud expression. His tanned arms raised in victory.
Yet, if dreams could come true they would cast the world in a haze of diamonds. A long lost memory was all it was and in reality it hadn’t ended up like that. I had tried several times that day to reach the box but couldn’t free dive that deep before panicking. My brother was understanding, yet he couldn’t hide the slight disappointment in the depths of his olive green eyes. ‘We’ll try again tomorrow little grasshopper.’ He said before ruffling my hair around a bit.
The love for the ocean was a passion we shared. He was a free diver, I was a surfer. The coast of Hawaii, where we had lived our entire lives, was the perfect spot for it. Maybe it was something we were born with all along, considering both of our parents worked in the water sport industry.
My brother would hide treasure boxes for me to find and sometimes send me on treasure hunts with real life maps. I saw him as the perfect older brother, because he had always been just that. This one treasure though, was placed too deep for my fourteen year old self to find. We came out of the ocean that day both a little frazzled, had a milkshake at our favorite restaurant and would try again the next. That was the important thing about our relationship, no matter how hard one of us failed at something. We would never give up.
Despite my efforts I never found the treasure. Oliver had told me it must have drifted off in the current that night. We searched everywhere for it the next day. I asked him what he had buried for me that was so important for us to retrieve, but he wouldn’t reply. I would find it one day, he replied.
It was the last day of summer that Sunday. It was also the last time I ever saw him.
My brother disappeared the next day without a trace. Five years later I still think about that treasure, in my dreams I still hunt for it. In those dreams I still get to see him, talk to him. I always ask him why? He always answers with the same sentence. ‘It’s the treasure of the ocean now, little grasshopper and the big guy doesn’t spit secrets but waves.’ Before he turns his broad back to me, walking off into the sunset.
That faithful day I watched him walk away from me, his back turned as he did in the dream. He would be meeting his best friend for a luah. It will forevermore be the final image I would have of him. Whatever happened to him after I left the beach that evening remains the biggest mystery of my life. Haunting me in my dreams and during waking hours too. His best friend never saw him that night. Nobody on the island had. Nobody ever would see him again.
The last day of summer took away my brother and my love for the ocean. It ripped and shredded, it withered. It broke me, pieces weren’t just scattered they were obliterated. It could never be mended again. There was a life before that evening and a life after, an afterlife. Because I have never felt alive for a single second again, since the last day of summer swept away my brother.
The last time I ever dove it was in a search and retrieve party.
To look for Oliver’s dead body.