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The ocean is endless.
That was Aziraphale’s initial impression of it, at least, when he received his first-ever coastal assignment and stepped onto the stretch of shell-strewn sand, staring out at the unceasing expanse of rolling water that meets his eyes, draws them, holds them riveted.
It is the same expanse that has pulled him back to this beach over and over again ever since that first occasion, every time bringing him to gaze upon the sea once more. To stand transfixed, despite himself, feeling miniscule and lost and somehow lonesome in the face of such magnitude on the terrestrial plane… yet simultaneously caught up by an indefinable quality of wonder, of elation, of vaguely mingled intimidation and near-yearning that is inexplicably awakened by the hypnotic thunder of waves, the foam flying near the shoreline, and the tang of salt spray in the atmosphere.
The feeling is not unpleasant, all in all, though it is undeniably a bit uneasy. There is a melancholy to it, a poignancy, but it also brings with it a certain sense of wistful joy, of wild peace, of something that Aziraphale might be inclined to label freedom — if there was not something about that concept, unattainable as it is, that he tries to avoid dwelling on too deeply. Still…
“Aziraphale?” The sound of his name calls Aziraphale back to himself: here, now, on the sand, wind tugging at his hair and blowing in his face, the voice of a demon close at hand. Grounding him, centering him, settling him…
…No, wait, that is to say, startling him. The voice of a demon?
Aziraphale whirls, tearing his gaze from the horizon in the process. And yes, there he is, a mere few yards away: Crawly, one hand shading his eyes against the sparkle of sunlight on water, the other held aloft as if in greeting.
Well. Come to think of it, it seems decidedly likely that the gesture is rather more than simply as if in greeting.
“Aziraphale!” Crawly calls again, voice raised to be heard over the roar of the waves, and comes closer. His eyes glow brilliant yellow, a vivid contrast with the silvers and blues of the ocean that still dazzle in Aziraphale’s mind and eye.
Crawly waves a hand, indicating the vast body of water. “So, what do you think of all this?”
“It…” His awareness is still somewhere far away, floating off in the brine. Aziraphale tries to remember how to form thoughts, words, sentences; closes his eyes so the sight of the ocean is blocked out for a moment; takes a breath, inhaling sea spray. Opens his eyes again, focusing them on Crawly rather than on the rolling expanse that lies beyond. “It’s very… big.”
“Oh, yeah! That’s exactly what I thought!” Crawly is nodding enthusiastically, smile bright and guileless, apparently wholly and genuinely delighted by the discovery that they have both picked up on the exceedingly subtle fact that the ocean is big. “Have you seen it before?”
“A few times,” Aziraphale murmurs, forgetting to speak loudly enough to be heard through the background noise, but evidently Crawly hears him anyway.
“Same here,” Crawly answers, coming to a stop a couple feet to Aziraphale’s left. “I come to watch it, sometimes.”
He pauses. There is a brief silence, broken only by the screech of a seagull. Aziraphale glances between the demon and the massive body of salt water. He nearly makes a comment about something — he isn’t sure what it would be about, but about something — then changes his mind at the last moment.
“‘S impressive, huh?” Crawly says eventually.
“Mm. Yes. Very.” Aziraphale considers adding something else, attempting to put words to the way that looking at the sea makes him feel. Thrilled; touched; amazed. And, at the same time, so very small; lost; almost… adrift.
Alone.
He hesitates, and he very nearly does go on. But if there are words to describe this feeling, to explain it, he certainly can’t find them now. And besides, on second thought, the very idea of baring his inner… whatever this is… to Crawly — whom he really hardly knows at all, the occasional run-in aside, not to mention the whole matter of their being hereditary enemies and whatnot…
“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees again, instead, since he has no desire to follow that train of thought any longer and there are seemingly no other words at his disposal at the moment. “It is quite impressive.”
Crawly nods again. And this time they both fall quiet, eyes gradually drifting, roaming over each other, across the sand of the beach, to the foam, to the waves, to the far-distant horizon… until they are both standing there, side by side, silent, simply watching the ocean being the ocean.
The ocean is not particularly like Heaven. In fact, Aziraphale becomes more positive each time he sees it — and more so than ever, now that he sees it with Crawly beside him — the ocean is not at all like Heaven , in spite of whatever superficial similarities there may be to be found in its apparent spatial boundlessness or in some aspects of the color schemes. No, this scenery is far too sensory, too dynamic, too alive in its ambience to be comparable to anything so ethereally sterile as a celestial conference room.
And yet, nor is the sea like anything else Earthly that Aziraphale has ever encountered. He has seen the Garden. He has seen the desert. He has seen forests, and lakes, and mountains, and marshes, and valleys. Every landscape rich, unique, wonderful in its own right; each one another beautiful, breathtaking, awe-inspiring representation of the bounty and diversity of Creation.
None of all the marvels of the world that Aziraphale has encountered in the past had quite prepared him for this.
Baruch atah… oseh ma'aseh b’reishit. She’asah et ha’yam ha’gadol.
No matter what his eyes may try to persuade him to believe, the ocean is not infinite. It is not endless. Aziraphale knows the meaning of both these words — knows them well, intimately, far better than a mortal could ever conceive of. And he knows that the Earth is by its very nature neither infinite nor endless, and that the ocean is a part of the Earth. So, therefore, it follows that the sea must also be finite, and that any appearance of endlessness is merely a trick of the eyes, a limitation imposed by biology or physics or some other law of nature or ineffability.
Yet still, time and time again, he has found himself returning to this shore. And he stands, and he stares out into unending, mesmerizing layers of subtly shifting blues and grays and purples and whites and other hues he cannot think of a name for, stretching away into the distance as far as the eye can see until they meld smoothly into the paler blue backdrop of sky… and, caught and all but drowning in the vision, as happens practically without fail every time he comes back to this place, Aziraphale can hardly breathe, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the quality of the air.
The visual effects are of course far from the only thing that the oceanside environment offers Aziraphale’s senses. There is a singular scent in the dampness of the air, one he has not yet managed to find a name for — a pungency simultaneously harsh and almost sweet, cold and crisp and clean, reaching Aziraphale’s lungs with such vigor that, the first time he came here, he gasped when the first gust hit, corporation unprepared for the impact. The wind that carries with it that cool, fresh odor is itself strong and distinctly stubborn, tangling in Aziraphale’s hair, blowing Crawly’s into his eyes, forcing them both to squint in the face of its briskness.
The constant crashing of the water reverberates in Aziraphale’s ears, his chest, his very veins, periodically interrupted by the raucous cry of another gull. The ground beneath his feet is loose and grainy, sifting around his bare toes when he shifts his balance — a fine, soft near-powder that (as Aziraphale learned the hard way when he took his first couple steps on this beach, before he thought to miracle calluses for the soles of his feet) is heavily interspersed with sharper pieces of stone and shell.
And all these other aspects of the setting, immersive as they are, serve merely to augment the effect of the sight of the sea itself. Aziraphale’s hair whips in the wind, his heart pounds with the waves, and he stands stock still beside Crawly… the both of them gazing out into what, if he didn’t know better, Aziraphale might still find himself all too tempted to call infinity.
They stand, and they stare, transfixed, together, and it is quite a long while before either of them turns to depart.
It is also not until quite some time later that it occurs to Aziraphale that, while most of the ocean-inspired emotions remain intact and as powerful as ever — both nameless and named; the beauty, the reverence, the thrill, the borderline overwhelm — the feeling of loneliness seems, at some point, to have disappeared.