The Man and the Sea

Dawn was still nothing more than a pale promise, brushing the horizon, when Éloi opened his eyes. He didn’t need an alarm clock. For over forty years, his body had awakened with the first light of day, as though a secret pact bound him to the rhythm of the ocean. In the half-darkness of his room on the first floor, he lay still for a moment, listening to the breath of the sea rising through the slightly open window. The waves were restless this morning, louder than usual. A storm was coming.

Éloi got up, slipping into his thick woolen robe. The old wooden floor creaked beneath his feet, as it did every morning. The house hadn’t changed much since his childhood — it had simply grown quieter after his parents’ departure. The yellowed photographs in the hallway were a testament to a bygone era, when Camaret-sur-Mer was still a thriving fishing village.

Descending the stairs, Éloi absentmindedly touched the carved banister, worn smooth by decades of familiar hands. He passed by his workshop, still in darkness, where the instruments waiting for repair stood patiently. A faint scent of varnished wood and beeswax lingered, mingling with the salty air that permeated the house.

In the kitchen, he lit the gas stove with a practiced gesture and set his copper kettle to heat. His morning ritual was unchanged: a large black coffee and a reheated crêpe in front of the big window overlooking the ocean. Outside, the sky slowly turned pink and orange. The clouds, however, were gathering offshore, grey and menacing. For Éloi, the sea was a face with ever-changing expressions he had come to know. Today, it bore the particular unease that preceded a great fury.

“It will be tonight,” he murmured, blowing on his hot coffee.

Once his modest breakfast was finished, he dressed warmly and went out onto the terrace overlooking the beach. The wind had picked up, tousling his white hair. In the distance, Camaret-sur-Mer was waking up lazily. Most of the houses were now closed for eight months of the year, only opening their shutters in summer. Of the thirty fishing boats that once sailed out each morning, only three remained. The young ones had left, drawn to city life.

Éloi descended the steep little path that led directly to the beach. His legs weren’t as agile as they used to be, but he knew every stone, every bend. This morning walk was another of his rituals, regardless of the weather. The tide had receded, leaving a wide strip of wet sand where the colorful sky reflected. He walked along the shore, mechanically scanning the treasures deposited by the tide: intertwined seaweed, broken shells, pieces of glass polished by the waves.

An hour later, he returned to his house, his pockets full of small marine debris he collected without really knowing why. His workshop awaited him.

The room that had once served as his parents' living room had, over the decades, become Éloi's sanctuary. The walls disappeared beneath shelves laden with meticulously arranged tools. A large table occupied the center of the room, bathed in natural light from three large windows. Instruments at various stages of repair rested on specially designed stands: a cello with cracked ribs, an antique mandolin, and the guitar he had been working on for the past week.

It was an old Fender that had belonged to Marcel, a fisherman who had passed away the previous winter. His grandson, who came to clean out the house, had found it in the attic and brought it to Éloi.

“It has sentimental value,” he had explained. “Grandfather always said he’d play it for his funeral.”

Éloi had agreed to restore it, sensing the importance of the gesture. The strings were rusted, the neck slightly warped from the humidity. Nothing irreparable for his skilled hands.

The morning passed in silence, broken only by the sound of his tools. From time to time, he looked up toward the ocean visible through the window. The clouds had drawn closer, and the seagulls circled nervously above the waves, their shrill cries carried by the growing wind.

Around noon, as he delicately adjusted the nut of the guitar, soft knocks sounded at his door. It was Madame Kervella, his octogenarian neighbor, one of the few permanent residents of the village.

“I made too much soup, as usual,” she said, handing him a glass container. “You should close your shutters, Éloi. The weather is forecasting quite a storm tonight.”

He thanked her with a smile. Madame Kervella always worried about him, as though he were still the little boy she had seen running on the beach sixty years ago.

“The ocean already told me this morning,” he replied simply, with a slight smile.

The afternoon progressed, and with it, the darkness. Éloi had to turn on his work lamp earlier than usual. Outside, the wind grew stronger, making a loose shutter somewhere in the village flap against the wall. He finished polishing the neck of the restored guitar and then gently placed it back on its stand. The result was satisfying.

After a modest dinner, he settled into the old armchair by the fireplace where he had started a fire. The storm was now upon them. The rain lashed against the windows, and the wind howled around the house like a living creature. Éloi had not closed the shutters. He liked watching the raging ocean, this wild force that reminded him of his own insignificance.

In the flickering light of the flames, he picked up an old photo album from a shelf. The yellowed pages crackled as he opened it. Smiling faces looked back at him — his father in a yellow raincoat on the deck of his trawler, his mother in front of the house on a spring day, and himself as a skinny teenager with messy hair, proudly holding a guitar. There were other faces as well, but some pages were carefully avoided.

The night wore on, and the storm reached its peak. Éloi eventually closed the album and stood up to approach the window. The sea was invisible in the dark, but he could hear it roar, crashing against the rocks below with a rare violence. Yet, amidst this chaos, he seemed to hear something else — a sort of melody, a ghostly tune rising from the depths.

He stood for a long time listening, overcome by a strange melancholy. This aquatic melody awakened memories he usually tried to keep at bay. Musical notes seemed to form in the howling wind, like a violin being played in the distance.

“You’re going mad, old man,” he murmured, shaking his head.

He finally went to bed, rocked by the symphony of the storm.