Red Sea Regrets: A Survivor’s Guilt Trip (Now with 50% more trauma)

Based on Psalm 77 & Exodus overlay – Told through the imagined voice of an Egyptian soldier at the Red Sea.

I still dream about the water. Not the drowning. Not even the shouting. Just the moment it stood still—like it was listening. That’s the part that haunts me.

You want to hear it again? The story? You’ve heard it before, but all right. Sit closer. The fire’s warm, and the wind is up. Nights like this, I remember more than I forget.

I was a foot soldier back then. Just another name in the list, armour too big, orders too fast. Pharaoh had changed his mind—again. He said the Hebrews had tricked us. Said they were escaping with stolen gods or stolen honour. Doesn’t matter. When Pharaoh says chase, you chase.

We marched hard across the dust, sweat pouring, sand clinging. I thought they would be running in panic. But when we caught up to them near the sea, they were just standing there. Thousands of them, backs to the water, not even holding weapons. I remember thinking—what kind of madness is this?

But they weren’t mad. They were waiting.

Then it happened. You hear people talk about it like it was thunder and wind and trumpets. It wasn’t. Not at first. It was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your heart forget how to beat. The sea didn’t crash—it opened. Like a curtain pulled back. A wall of water on one side. A wall of water on the other. And dry ground—dry!—right through the middle.

Some of the men fell to their knees. Others cursed or laughed, like it was some clever Hebrew trick. But I stood still. My legs wouldn’t move. Not forward. Not back. Just still. I knew, somehow, that we shouldn’t go in. But orders came down the line. We had to pursue. Had to finish what we started.

So I stepped in. One foot, then another. My sandals pressed into the seabed like walking on clay. The walls of the water towered beside me, humming—yes, humming, like something alive. I didn’t breathe. No one did.

We were halfway through when I slipped. Just a little, just enough to look up. That’s when I saw him—a boy, maybe ten years old, standing with his family on the far shore. He looked straight at me. No hatred in his eyes. Just sadness. And something else—relief, maybe. Like he’d already seen how this would end.

That’s when I heard it—the sound. Not water. Not shouting. The kind of sound you feel before you hear. The air shifted. A pressure. And the walls of the sea began to move.

I turned and ran. Dropped my shield. Dropped everything. I ran like a madman, praying to gods I wasn’t sure I believed in. I heard the crash behind me—an entire sea returning to its home. I don’t remember the next part. Just coughing, sand, and blood in my mouth. And silence.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone. Alone on the wrong shore. Or the right one. I never know.

That was forty years ago now. I never went back to the army. Took up work in the hills, grew vegetables, mended tools, and married your grandmother. Never told anyone what I saw—not properly. Some said I was lucky. Others said I was cursed. Maybe they’re both right.

But I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe that the sea opened because their God willed it. Not for power. Not for show. For freedom. And I believe I lived not because I ran faster, or fought harder, or prayed louder. I lived because that same God heard me, even me.

I didn’t know how to speak to a God like that. Not with my old prayers. So I started saying new ones. Not polished, just honest. At night, when the wind rises, I say them still. They sound like that Hebrew song I learned later: “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me… Your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters, yet your footprints were unseen.”

Unseen, but not absent.

You ask me why I still remember. Why I still mark that day. It’s not just because I survived. It’s because that was the day I stopped being a soldier and started being something else. I still don’t have a name for it. But I remember. And remembering changes a man.

So no, little ones, I wasn’t one of the heroes. I didn’t carry a prophet’s staff or part the sea. I didn’t sing the songs of victory or dance on the far shore. But I was there. And I was spared. And I was changed.

Now, go to bed. Your grandmother will scold me for keeping you up. But one more thing—when you walk along the water’s edge, any water, look twice. Some places still remember. Some moments still hold echoes. And if you listen, really listen, you might hear the sea waiting. Or the silence just before salvation.

Red Sea Regrets: A Survivor’s Guilt Trip (Now with 50% more trauma)
(shorter version)

Based on Psalm 77 & Exodus overlay – Told through the imagined voice of an Egyptian soldier at the Red Sea.

I still dream about the water. Not the drowning. Not even the shouting. Just the moment it stood still—like it was listening. That’s the part that haunts me.

You want to hear it again? The story? You’ve heard it before, but all right. Sit closer. The fire’s warm, and the wind is up. Nights like this, I remember more than I forget.

I was a foot soldier back then. Just another name in the list, armour too big, orders too fast. Pharaoh had changed his mind—again. He said the Hebrews had tricked us. Said they were escaping with stolen gods or stolen honour. Doesn’t matter. When Pharaoh says chase, you chase.

We marched hard across the dust, sweat pouring, sand clinging. I thought they would be running in panic. But when we caught up to them near the sea, they were just standing there. Thousands of them, backs to the water, not even holding weapons. I remember thinking—what kind of madness is this?

But they weren’t mad. They were waiting.

Then it happened. You hear people talk about it like it was thunder and wind and trumpets. It wasn’t. Not at first. It was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your heart forget how to beat. The sea didn’t crash—it opened. Like a curtain pulled back. A wall of water on one side. A wall of water on the other. And dry ground—dry!—right through the middle.

Continue reading the full story here.