The fragmented iridescence of reality floods through the
clouds that correlate above my head and for a moment I am singular amongst a
mass of floating seagulls that line the shore. Far off, over rocky hills that
are garnished with small cottages and smoking chimneys I can see the end of the
world, where the ocean falls away into pools of brightly coloured plantations.
Clawing at the sodden sand beneath my bare feet, I let the mixture run through
my fingers, entwining into the crevices of skin, flooding through my pours. I
hate sand. It sticks to the skin like barnacles clambering against the rocky
creeks of the shoreline. The sun isn’t shining, it is always dark here and
always cold.
I can see you. You’re wearing your favourite cap, black with
a mesh lining at the back, with your grey hairs sprouting through the bottom in
an unflattering array of angles. Your ears are coiled and convulsed through
years of playing rugby and one eye squints against the light of the day due to
your cataract. Skin once soft and pink has turned to crepe paper, with sheets
breaking away into a cubist masterpiece. Over your skeleton, sits a green
shirt, short sleeved and creased. Your shorts, beige, ill-fitting and missing a
button in the bottom left corner. Despite all that the one thing that is
familiar about you is your brown beach shoes. Worn away at one corner,
uncovering a small hole they seem almost homely, like seeing an old friend
after many years apart.
Softly treading over the sand, I hear your soft laughter, a
sound that has become a faint memory and a sight only seen in old sepia
photographs and old tape recordings. I like to remember you like that.
Swings were a favourite outlet of childhood happiness. You
would push us for many hours, singing ‘pop
goes the weasel’ until the gentle light of the sun began to fade behind the
far off cemented buildings of the swimming baths which we never frequented
because Mum said it was ‘totally unhygienic.’ Then we would stroll home against
the soft Welsh breeze that caressed pink cheeked faces and you would tell us
stories of your many adventures that you had from the seat of your bicycle.
Great green lands with towering oak trees and blossoming flowers. Grand cities
with cement architectural abominations and thunderous car horns. Quiet stone
parks with sculptures that danced through water fountains. You would recount
them all night until our eyelids began to flutter closed in the small bedroom
of our trailer tent and you clamber back on to the seat of your little green
bike that matched the colour of that shirt and you would disappear into the
distance, only the faint ticking of your wheels turning over the gravel path
reaching our ears.
The sand has dispersed from my pours now, the wind whipping
through my thin hair and as I turn I can see you, bare foot with a
fluorescent red, plastic spade clutched in your hands; they are shaking
slightly. I want to smile, I want to run to you but I can only stand in this
transparent box and watch you as you begin to corrupt the smooth surface of the
beach, digging deep into the earth, running your hand across ragged shells and
soft pebbles. Through the thin line of your lips I can hear you singing, though
your mouth never moves. The sound is faint but rich like a hot pot of coffee
and I find myself rocking from side to side, like a fishing boat anchored in
the harbour. From my frame erupt thousands of bewitching, coloured lights that
dance around me, twirling and dispersing through the air as their tiny flecks
reach out to you. Your eyes find mine for one small second, squinting softly as
if you heard a noise you could not recognise. No movement is made, no lines
connect and you merely continue to hum your soft melody as the lights captivate
my pupils.
Hands that continue to mould down into the earth abruptly
halt their craft and putting the spade down you reach out, capturing the tiny
flecks of light in yellows and blues. For a moment you consider releasing the
fragile fragments from your palm but instead you reach back down into the earth
and continue to caress the sand. Your voice creates a new song. This song is
haunting, full of tiny bones and broken china and I listen, the lights fading
from my soul as I look to you from across the shore. Only now do I try to cry
out, quickly realising that my own voice has been captured in a moment of
beauty and I thrash at the transparent confine I have been placed in but I
cannot reach you.
I see your gangly legs rising from the soft ground, the
bones realigning and crinkling as you stand at your full height and I am
released from the confines that hold me to the ground. Wind lashing at the
tender skin upon my face, I run to you but every faltering step I take towards
you, I seem to get further away. I shout your name, the name I have given you,
long before I was born into this world. You look at me now, smiling gently
showing a few jiggered teeth at the front of your mouth, before your body erupts
into sand and floats away on an easterly wind.
I run for hours, hours and hours, hours and hours and hours.
I reach the small grave you have dug into the earth, the sky is light but
covered with millions of bulbs and I look into the ground. There nestled into
the walls of the sand city lay your brown beach shoes, entwined with vines of
daisies. I fall to the floor, my fingers clawing at the earth as I water the
daisies with fresh tears.
