The Secret Beneath the Waves

Only White Sails Welcome

People say the sea has a way of choosing—they believe it sings to the worthy and swallows the rest. 

Bleu, vast and vain, was the sea himself—a voice like thunder, soul carved by centuries of thetide. His color alone stayed with you long after you looked away. Some called it enchanted. Others called it impossible. Bleu liked both. He sparkled beneath the sun with a lonely perfection, too clean to hold anything real. Most people didn't look deeper than his beauty. But sailors with listening hearts sometimes heard something else—a whisper in the waves, like a memory trying to return. And ships with white sails came bearing people with hollow laughter and soft shoes. They stayed just long enough to admire his waters. All that attention made him feel important. "This must be love," thought Bleu. But a part of him knew better. They called him perfect, whispered paradise—yet each night, as the last ship disappeared, he watched love sail away with them.

Moody Bleu and Nights in Black Satin

At midnight, when the yachts were gone, and moonlight spilled across his surface, Bleu thought of the other oceans.

They were messy and didn't share his impossible blue color. Yet, they laughed in crashing tides and danced in storms. Their joy rose, wild and thunderous.

How could they be so happy, with boats of chipped paint and patched sails drifting across their waters? Bleu tried to figure out what they had that he didn't. Over the years, he developed theories. Maybe their secret lived deep within them—something hidden. Something real.

When the ache grew too much, Bleu looked up to the stars. They were always there, twinkling to each other like old friends. Close. Connected. Together.

He wanted to be up there with them—to laugh like they did, to belong to something. He didn't want admiration; he wanted a friend. 

Bleu reached for them with gentle waves.

"Oh stars," he whispered, "do you know my name?"

But the stars never answered.

Bleu fell silent. He didn't speak again. Not for a very long time. No one must know. That he was a night in black satin—never reaching the morning. A soul dressed in beauty, hiding thoughts never meant to be heard. If they saw what he was, would they still love him?

And so, he wept. But no one noticed. No one ever does.

Because whoever notices when an ocean cries?

Splinters and Silence 

One day, a girl arrived at dawn, her fire-colored hair tangled by the wind, her boat's splintered planks and peeling paint. She drifted as if she didn't know she was trespassing. Her oars moved slowly, steadily, and prayerfully, guided by light only her soul could hear.

 He saw her—and fury surged.

He was the sea—vast, proud, polished to perfection. She was small, sea-worn, and full of borrowed courage. He sent a wave her way, sharp and cold, salt spraying like spit. Her boat rocked, but she stayed upright.

So he rose higher.

A second wave curled above her like a clenched fist—the kind that didn't spare. But just before he struck—she looked up.

Her eyes found him. Not the glitter, not the color. Him.

And Bleu, confused and shaken, let the wave fall back into himself. The ocean stilled. Misty sat, breath shallow, heart thudding. Had the sea just… stopped?

"Who are you?" he asked, voice low as the deep.

She blinked. Was she imagining things? Then again—"Who are you?" 

This time, without thinking, she said, "M... Misty."

Silence stretched between them, wide as the sky.

Bleu watched her. No fear. No flattery. Just presence.

Still in shock, she blurted, "What are you? Am I talking to an ocean? Do you have a name?"

"I am Bleu," he said—out loud, for the first time in his life.

Everyone else had turned away. But not her.

He didn't know if he hated it… or needed it.

Because if she stayed, she might uncover the truth he'd buried even from himself.

Fish in Buckets, Coral in Crates

The silence thickened, heavy as fog.

Misty didn't notice the quiet at first. She was still talking—telling Bleu about herself and why she was there.

But then something happened—a strange quiet wrapped around her like a held breath. No birds. No waves. No sound at all.

She froze mid-sentence.

There were no shadows below. Misty looked into the water—and a chill climbed her spine.

She didn't see any fish darting or coral blooming. She only saw Bleu's water empty as a blank page.

"Bleu…" she whispered. "Did you know you're empty?"

His water rolled curiously. "What do you mean?"

Misty's eyes filled with tears. "Your water is meant to hold more than blue sparkles," she said softly. "An ocean should have life—movement, sound, things that grow."

Bleu's waves receded, unsure of themselves. "What's life?" he asked.

She brushed a hand along the edge of the boat. "Oh! Life is grand! It's the stuff that fills you up. Not just beautiful—real." 

"I'll come back tomorrow and show you."

And for the first time since Bleu could remember, he hoped for morning, not to be seen, but to see what life was all about.

The next morning, Misty returned with buckets of fish and crates filled with coral. She poured them out—shimmering fish that looked like stars, darting and dancing. Coral followed, delicate and bright.

"What are you doing?" Bleu asked, his voice rising with the current.

"Bringing you what you need," Misty said. "This is life. An ocean without it isn't alive."

Every day, Misty came back. Their friendship twinkled like stars.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Coral took root. Fish painted the sea with song. Once hollow with silence, Bleu brimmed with something new—soft, steady, and strong. He had found joy.

Where the Letters Went 

Misty still visited Bleu, though her strokes grew slower, her voice softened with time. Her hair, once the color of fire, now caught the wind like a silver thread. Bleu, with waves white as silk, rose to meet her. He had been a night in black satin once. Now, at last, morning had come.

When she came, they shared memories: laughter tucked between sunrays and a quiet love for Jesus that had settled into Bleu's heart without him even knowing.

"I didn't know why," she said, gazing at the gold-rimmed horizon. "That first day, something in my heart just told me to come here. To this exact place. I didn't question it—I just rowed."​

She smiled, then added, "Now I'm glad I listened."

Time, as it always does, moved forward.

Misty cried one evening as the moon laid a soft hand on the water.

"Look at you," she whispered, running her hand across Bleu, who glittered like laughter.

"Full of life. I'm so happy for you."

Bleu, once afraid to speak, spoke gently now.

"I used to think beauty was everything.

Now I know—life is.

The kind that fills you, not hollows you out."

And it was true.

Fish danced through coral gardens. Birds skimmed the waves.

Boats came and went—painted, rusted, polished, patched.

Bleu welcomed them all.

And somehow, the more he gave,

the more joy he found waiting in return.

Misty reached into her boat that night and pulled out a weathered notebook. The cover was bent; the pages, salt-stained and sun-softened.

"These are my letters," she said. "Wrote them on nights when the world felt too heavy. Never meant to send them."

She ran her fingers along the paper's edge. "But maybe you were always meant to read them."

She tore the pages free, one by one—light as breath, worn like prayers—and scattered them across the sea.

"They'll vanish," Bleu cried.

"But not before you feel the words," Misty replied with a tear.

Bleu read them all, his waves swelling with each page. He wanted to tell her everything—but the words didn't come.

Her breath slowed.

"Misty…" he whispered, cupping her boat with his gentlest tide.

She looked up with love in her heart. "You're not alone anymore. You have life now—the kind that never leaves you empty."

He held her as long as the sea allowed. But the tide has its rhythm, its own will. And gently, her boat drifted toward the horizon, wrapped in sunset gold.

Bleu reached for her—wave upon wave—but the ocean couldn't chase the current.

She was gone.

He wept—quiet, aching waves filled with love and sorrow.

And yet—beneath that grief, life swam. Coral glowed. Laughter returned.

And when Bleu missed her most, he would look deep into himself, into the quiet velvet of his waters.

And there was Misty, glowing like a single star that never left.

Not above him. Within him.

A light that didn't just shine.

A light that stayed.

And Bleu understood at last:

An ocean without life is only water.

Just like a soul without Christ—

is always longing, never home.