(no subject)
Stepping Out - A tragedy in three parts.
i
‘Let’s go back.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s cold. I’m all wet. I don’t like it.’
Another wave breaks around our feet. Saltspray in my eyes and I can’t see but that doesn’t matter to her. She grins, standing on the rock - the last-land’s-root - and I look at my shoes which are starting to crack from the salt.
I say ‘Tide’s coming up.’
‘Maybe you’re falling down.’
‘That’s stupid…’
‘Is it?’ She turns her eyes to me - blue, marbled, all frothy. I see a flash of her teeth and they’ve always been white but now they look grey and her pupils are strange to me. Blacker than usual. Messed.
I stamp on the rock and the dull thump fades into the heaving of the waves. I say ‘I’ve been here the whole time. I haven’t moved. The tide is coming up and my shoes are already wet and I don’t want my trousers to be wet because then I’ll-’
‘-Shhh’ she says, her finger on my lip, eyes all into me and looking, searching. The sea is roaring and I’m still so still but whenever I throw my eyes I just see cliffs and clouds and thin-skinned trees.
This beach is mean. It’s cold. I don’t like it.
She says ‘Fish can breathe underwater.’
‘So?’
‘Maybe I’m a fish.’ She laughs and the notes peel into the wind, one after the other, ha-ha-ha.
'No you’re not.’ She looks at me strangely. As though I’ve said something I shouldn’t. Her fingers are pink and I hear gulls copying her laughter. Ka-ka-ka.
I say ‘Can we go, please.’ She hasn’t heard me. Her hair keeps getting fanned by the wind and sometimes it brushes against my face, like straw. She turns around, looking sad; like I’ve broken her trust, or something. Gulls keep on and her cheeks are bright pink; the colour of birdtongues.
She says ‘Do you know what lives here?’
‘Where?’
‘Here. The sea.’
‘We’re on land.’
‘Only just. Out here-’ she looks at the creaming surf, the waves that skirl over knuckled rocks ‘-there’s more living than on the land. There’s more of everything. More space. Time. Even dreams…If all fish dream then their world is wider than ours.’
‘What are you saying?’
Her hands rise to the sky, as if to say who is this fool? She rolls her weird eyes and I start to panic. My heart beats thickly and it’s like I’m underwater. Everything rushes out. I can hear the brittle sounds of the deep dark sea: the metallic click of pebbles slamming together and waves of silk-kernels sweeping as the tide brushes over the seabed: sound of sand on a drum skin. She is not usually like this. Something is wrong. The sun has started to set upon us and the cliffs are burning. They are bright, brighter than white, standing for ever at the borders of this country, guarding against the sleeping silence of the deep, the sucking void of saltwater and white teeth, dark and primordial as the hunded-year-go.
i
‘Let’s go back.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s cold. I’m all wet. I don’t like it.’
Another wave breaks around our feet. Saltspray in my eyes and I can’t see but that doesn’t matter to her. She grins, standing on the rock - the last-land’s-root - and I look at my shoes which are starting to crack from the salt.
I say ‘Tide’s coming up.’
‘Maybe you’re falling down.’
‘That’s stupid…’
‘Is it?’ She turns her eyes to me - blue, marbled, all frothy. I see a flash of her teeth and they’ve always been white but now they look grey and her pupils are strange to me. Blacker than usual. Messed.
I stamp on the rock and the dull thump fades into the heaving of the waves. I say ‘I’ve been here the whole time. I haven’t moved. The tide is coming up and my shoes are already wet and I don’t want my trousers to be wet because then I’ll-’
‘-Shhh’ she says, her finger on my lip, eyes all into me and looking, searching. The sea is roaring and I’m still so still but whenever I throw my eyes I just see cliffs and clouds and thin-skinned trees.
This beach is mean. It’s cold. I don’t like it.
She says ‘Fish can breathe underwater.’
‘So?’
‘Maybe I’m a fish.’ She laughs and the notes peel into the wind, one after the other, ha-ha-ha.
'No you’re not.’ She looks at me strangely. As though I’ve said something I shouldn’t. Her fingers are pink and I hear gulls copying her laughter. Ka-ka-ka.
I say ‘Can we go, please.’ She hasn’t heard me. Her hair keeps getting fanned by the wind and sometimes it brushes against my face, like straw. She turns around, looking sad; like I’ve broken her trust, or something. Gulls keep on and her cheeks are bright pink; the colour of birdtongues.
She says ‘Do you know what lives here?’
‘Where?’
‘Here. The sea.’
‘We’re on land.’
‘Only just. Out here-’ she looks at the creaming surf, the waves that skirl over knuckled rocks ‘-there’s more living than on the land. There’s more of everything. More space. Time. Even dreams…If all fish dream then their world is wider than ours.’
‘What are you saying?’
Her hands rise to the sky, as if to say who is this fool? She rolls her weird eyes and I start to panic. My heart beats thickly and it’s like I’m underwater. Everything rushes out. I can hear the brittle sounds of the deep dark sea: the metallic click of pebbles slamming together and waves of silk-kernels sweeping as the tide brushes over the seabed: sound of sand on a drum skin. She is not usually like this. Something is wrong. The sun has started to set upon us and the cliffs are burning. They are bright, brighter than white, standing for ever at the borders of this country, guarding against the sleeping silence of the deep, the sucking void of saltwater and white teeth, dark and primordial as the hunded-year-go.