Prologue: I See, So I Speak

I can see, hear, taste, smell and feel. Which is why I also think and speak.

It’s very difficult being me. I am an island in the middle of an ocean, yet I am also complete by myself. Spread over 17 acres of floating mass, sometimes as high as 40 metres, and valued at almost 35 million Malaysian Ringgit.

It’s not easy owning me, even if it is on lease. Which is why I am surprised as well as honoured when I see them coming—a man anda woman. My latest owners. At least one of them, if not both, must be rich enough. Probably a multi-millionaire. Maybe even a multibillionaire.

They don’t seem as old as my previous owners were. A family of oil tycoons. Maybe they just got lucky, or someone who had already
got lucky died, and an inheritance turned their fortunes. 

They hold their hands, laugh with abandon, and kiss. They are indeed happy. But will it last? I wonder, even as I wait and watch.

I was right after all, but not entirely. I thought they would be happy together, but you see they were not. At least not the woman. And when she suddenly died, things were never quite the same again.

He vanished, and it almost seemed like he would never return. But the waves of time, you see had other plans, and one of them, was to return him to me.

I can once again see him approaching my shores. The little boat that belongs to him is gently bobbing across the waves and turning towards its destination.

When he left, I had not believed that he would come back, and that too, so soon. It’s been just over a year, and yet he is back. And just like the first time when he came, this time too, he is not alone. 

He brings with him a woman. She is someone new, one I haven’t met before. I can sense that they are connected somehow, but I can’t figure out how. All I know is that they are not man and wife. Yet. 

Nor do I know what is to soon begin—this story. Actually, a series of stories—that began the day he first set foot upon me, along with a woman I can best describe as his soulmate, and was resumed when he returned—with a storyteller.

But I shall be waiting to see how it all pans out. Hear what she has to say, and finally see for myself how this story ends. Because everything that begins must also end, and so shall their story as well. 

A story told by her, and also by me. Of a love long lost, and of retribution as wild as the sea . . .