The Shark and the Sea

Note: This story contains intense themes and may not be suitable for all readers.

"Power without pause destroys itself.
What lives, fears. What fears, obeys."

— t r a b o c c o

A Confession. A Velocity Spike.

I am old—
a great white,
a slow spiral of scars and salt.

I’ve circled this moment for so long,
my muscles drawn back—restrained.
A lightning strike held in a blood-stained messenger bottle.
It’s not fear I follow,
I simply need to eat.
My prey... it trembles like a hymn.
Oh, that scent—fluttering. Drawing me in.

I. THE ALIGNMENT

The current hums like a wire. This moment?

It’s not memory. It’s now.

It has scales—one catches light.
It doesn’t pour its being into the sea,
but reflects it.
It’s not just prey. It’s a mirror.
And I can’t refuse it.

I don’t know if it’s the sun or the fish or the ocean working through me,
but we are in symbiosis.
I can’t hold this breath much longer.
God—what it is to be a shark.

I love this more than words can bear.
But I also admire the fish.
To kill as I do is not what you think—
it’s not fury.
It’s reverence.

I take what I must.
Not in anger.
In balance.
This is not a tantrum.
It is alignment.

The current does not ask permission.
It simply moves.
As do I.

But I digress.

Because the current builds.
The rush is coming—
and I thank God for my being.
Faster now. Faster.
My eyes roll back—and I become.

And as I move, the sea parts.
This is not ego.
This is the sacred shape of necessity.

Like curtains lifting before the play,
I see the others watching.
Sea bass. Flounder. The young reef fish pretending not to look.
They move with the rhythm of the sea.

Oh God—this feeling—can there be any greater joy
than to be what you were made to be?

The seaweed that scratched my belly as a pup—
if it had teeth, it would be grinning now.
My old friend.
Doing his thing.

Thank you, light.
Thank you, love.
Now it begins.

II. THE REFLECTION

And this force… I have to ask—how do you see me?

Am I something you fear?
Something you love?
Something you respect?

I know you.
And if you could—for a moment—feel what I hold for you...
I don’t think you’d kill me.
You’d say: Look at this life.

You’re an observer, and I admire that.
You could tell me things about myself
I’d never understand.

But can you pause?
Pause.
That’s my great teaching to you.

It took me centuries—passed down from shark to shark—
to learn this:

I am the patience of the sea.

Yes, me—a shark.
If you truly understood me,
you would admire.
And understand:
True power is made in time.
Agonizingly.
And yet—here it is.

Here I am.

A salt-priest.
My robe? The ocean.
It moves in waves that
I can dance through.

Admire me not as devastation—
but as beauty.

*A contained force of nature.
The pause before the strike.

I tremble—
not with weakness, but with stored certainty.
To strike too soon would be hunger.
To wait a moment longer…
is to become something else.
I tighten—not with rage,
but with reverence for the exactness of this moment.
The sea leans in.
She holds her breath too.

We ancients have a name for it.

*Riftshard (n.)

/ˈrɪft.ʃɑːrd/

Not patience—pressure.
A bow drawn back for eternity,
then loosed as a breath of stars and ruin.

First named by an old octopus—
wise enough to recognize
that balance is not stillness,
but stored violence.

Riftshard is the counterweight to wrath,
the edge of restraint honed to a whisper,
the unspoken root beneath every word
we’ve failed to define—
for generations

We sharks know it.
You feel it
right before the ocean stops pretending.

III. THE TURN AND THE TOLL

What appears explosive
is a series of steps.

And...
horrific things.

You'll see.

Now—
my old friends of the sea
would tell me
what a good teacher I am.
I can add color
to a bottomless sea floor.

I know this
about me.

So let me share something
you may enjoy.

My bite— Now, if you watch slowly,
my mouth pulls back,
teeth forward,
gills wide.
My eyes sit back deep in the brainstem.

And I tighten my jaw.
Now… I’ve worked on that.

My old friend,
Orin—

He had mastered
that jaw thing.

An old ship
took him down.
So sad to see—
something so powerful
caught on an old boat.
Some net tore his belly wide open.

The fish that applauded?
They can turn in a heartbeat.
No different than yours.
They watch, they cheer, they forget.

And that is what happened to Orin.

I know…

My fin brushed against you once—
you tell that tale ‘til you die.

We have that impact.

Anyway.
As I was saying—
my jaw, a little tense.
I don’t take the whole fish.
I take the tail first.

That tail… it sinks them.
And I— I take pleasure in this part.

Perhaps that’s where my reputation comes from.

Vampires…
your literature raves about them.
And yes—this is what I become.

I fucking spin back
and hit it like a bomb.
I tear.
I rip.
I love this.
And my whole being disappears into ecstasy.

It’s not food.
It’s a resurrection.

And the sun,
and my old friends—
they feel me.
And we are dancing.
And oh God, how I love thee.

IV. REMORSE AND MEMORY

Even we—old sharks—
have our soft parts.
Not bones, no.
But memory.
And love?
It finds us still—
even in blood.

And yes—I’ve had loves too.
There was Thessa…

She didn’t just bend in the sea.
She bent as the sea.
Her fin trailed phosphorescence in twilight.
I followed that glow—like breath itself.

We would swim by each other,
and her glance—a mirror.

I wasn’t the first to circle her.
She had been circling me the whole time

I was younger, but quite mature at that time.
40. Not the old boy I am now…

But even then...

With five minutes...
I could capture a galaxy—
in a whale’s eye.

So you could imagine what I can do with love…

and just a little time.

Oh, you have no idea.

But those good thoughts are few… with my love.

Dark memories crowd... don’t fade—
just calcify, lodged harpoons in soft tissue.

My Thessa—she had a bad death.
A very bad one.

And something in me began to change after that.

I have not resolved this
with you.

You humans, you can be cruel.

I forgive…
but I do not forget.

And so... I. Oh… I. I was a fool then.

Yes, we too can have regret...

I suppose I have to live with what I have done to you.

To a child—no less.

The rain can distort.
A funny mirror on the water’s surface.
It was shallow…
Stingrays with mouthfuls of clams in August— oh, a delight.
I was close to shore.
Riddled with hatred.
The splashing—
it startled me.
I tried.
God, I tried.
It’s in us, you know.

Instinct is a mermaid’s trident...

a weapon as old as the sea.

And... I don't like this topic. This memory.
But truth rides stronger than pride for this ole' boy now.

And so… I have to live with my past. My sorrow.

I still see little red bathing suits in my dreams.
I still hear mother’s screams carried on distant shores.

Those screams…

turned my sea metallic.

I haven’t tasted a Stingray since.

Damn crime scene…

The toy boat might as well have been a floating indictment.

Just kept drifting—
I nudged it once with my nose,
as if grace could travel backward...
hoping that might undo what had been done.

Pain. More than any fishhook to the lip.

Yes…
Yes… it hurts me too.

And as an old boy,
I have done my share of bad things.

Sometimes I wonder.
Can sorrow really be released?
Because I’ve realized—
I don’t have the capacity for such.

Only death will unhook the anchor—
I wear as a necklace made of ocean.

Oh that scream…

I am deeply sorry.

Orin would’ve forgiven me...
He knew how messy blood and instinct could get.

And so, I turn away to the deep now—
not to chase, but to drift.

I let the current carry what memory cannot.
I was not born cruel.
I was born ancient.
I let the sea remember what even I forget.

And one day, when the ocean reclaims all names,
you’ll feel a shift in tide.

A rhythm in the current...
...with memory that holds me.

A shark—
and the sea.

THE END

 If it moved you, I’d be honored if you liked, followed and shared.

--

The Shark and the Sea …

Power without pause destroys itself. Primal yet meditative – we watch the ultimate predator evolve… blending instinctual force with ancient remorse and oceanic wisdom. Told through the eyes of an old great white shark, this story breaks open the myth of instinct and replaces it with consciousness. The shark doesn’t just hunt— it reflects. It teaches. It confesses. It sings of pain, love, violence, and the weight of memory carried like an anchor made of names.

ᚱ Riftshard

Thank you for reading.

—t r a b o c c o

---

—The Shark and the Sea and 13 other stories by Joe Trabocco appear in the bestselling collection:
The Ghosts We Know: A Walk Through Lifetimes

👻 The Ghosts We Know
#1 Bestseller – Motivational Poetry (2025)
“Memory echoes through every lifetime.”
A poetic memoir of reincarnation, soul recognition, and the ache that never leaves.

📚 Available on Amazon Kindle - Or scroll up to Books -2025
🌐 thornlore.ghost.io

If this story moved you—
I’d be honored if you liked, followed, and shared.

Joe Trabocco— 6x Published Author | 4x Bestseller
Writing in presence. More felt than read.

🖊 Author of The Ghosts We Know: A Walk Through Lifetimes, Paintings: Love, Paintings: Grief, Ikala, The Collapse of the Continuum and more.

Top 10 Amazon Bestseller in: Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature

Inventor of Signal Literature —
a form built not to entertain, but to interrupt.

He doesn’t write for plot.
He writes for soul.
When it hits,
you’ll feel it instantly. 🩸