Whale Watching
By: Swetha Amit
The woman at the trailhead at Half Moon Bay smiled as she tightened the straps of her backpack.
“Beautiful day,” she said.
I nodded and continued down the coastal trail, the words staying with me—beautiful day. The sky hung low and gray over the Pacific. Wind combed through the poppies, bending them toward the sea. The air was cold and sharp. Waves struck the cliffs with a force that sounded almost angry.
Last night, the man I had been dating for a year asked for a break to seek clarity. The words came out clear and sudden. This morning, my younger sister called to say she was selling our childhood home. Our parents were gone. The house had been empty for years, filled only with dust, cobwebs, memory, and a few boxes in the attic. The news settled in me, like something dropped into deep water.
Ahead, a family stood at the cliff’s edge. Their children pointed toward the ocean, their voices bright with urgency. Their parents laughed. Whatever held their attention held them all. How strange it was to stand under the same sky yet not share the same world. The woman at the trailhead had seen beauty. The family saw something else entirely. I kept walking. At the end of the path, a weathered bench faced the water. An elderly man sat alone, binoculars resting on his knees.
“You’re just in time,” he said.
“For what?”
“The whales.”
He lifted a hand toward the horizon.
At first, there was only water. Then a plume of mist rose, followed by the dark arc of a whale’s back breaking the surface before sliding back under.
“There,” he said softly.
We watched in silence. When the ocean settled, he stood and brushed sand from his jacket.
“My wife loved this spot,” he said. “She’s been gone for three years. I still come every week.”
His gaze remained fixed outward.
“For a long time, I looked at this ocean without seeing it,” he said. “She taught me how to.”
Then he walked away.
I stayed.
Nothing had changed. The sky stayed the same dull gray. The wind pressed through my coat. The water kept moving, indifferent. A whale surfaced again in the distance. Its breath rose and dissolved into the air. Then it was gone, and only the sea remained.
Swetha Amit is an MFA Graduate from the University of San Francisco. The author of a memoir titled A Turbulent Mind and three chapbooks of flash fiction collections, her words appear in HAD, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Cream City Review, and others. A member of the Writers Grotto, she has had her stories nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fiction, and Best Microfiction.
Audrey-Anna Gamache is a writer and filmmaker based in New England. Her work has appeared in Chestnut Review, Chaotic Merge Magazine, and The Bloomin’ Onion. She can be found on X and Instagram @ScoutyLynch.