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Found me mid day, bleeding through the too bright sun. He washed up in the surf, and rose wavering and uncertain.
Ripped right through me, he did. Said he didn't know how. just stood there wavering and not knowing how. I tried my best to help him.
I rolled him around over the wet sand when he bade me to, but nothing would stick. He tried to do the same for me, but his hands just ripped right through, eyes drooping as he tried, swooshing and swooshing his impossible arms. The rest of his body began to droop too, to let the sun shine through too hard. He pawed at me then, not trying to roll me anymore, but trying to hold on. My clothes just breezed away, rippled by his heat.
I asked him again if he knew how he had gotten here. He looked startled and peeked all around as if someone was after him. I heard someone crying, echoing out from a cave down the beach somehow. I could still barley see the man in front of me when I heard it, he was just a slight shape in the sand, as if he was drawn out with its darker grains. I scratched my beard and sitting up, drank water from a bottle I had found.
I asked if he knew how I could help him. He stopped then and rose up, wavering harder. He told me to pull him back together. To sand him up, to fill up his holes.
I told him I had already tried, but he shook his head. Shook it and spoke through the wind, said "No. Not like you did before."
I cocked my head and crouched down, scooping up dry grains and casting them up and at him. They just slipped right through like they had before, through his ghostly holes, where he was letting the sun through. The grains seemed to stop him up for a second though, they blocked the sun for a second before tumbling out of him and back onto the toasted beach. He shook his head again and I saw his eyes droop lower. He looked frustrated as he tried to grab for my hand. I got the idea, held my hand up as if he had grabbed it. Moved it with his hand as he led me off towards the surf. We stopped at a place where the water hit the beach and washed away, a place I had liked to sit in. I saw that the sand was darker there. He nodded at me and pointed, ruffling his hair with his left hand, seeming almost surprised that he could touch himself. I picked up some handfuls and looked at him. He nodded again and bowed his shoulders
"Yes," I heard again on the wind. The screaming started back up down the beach. He lay down and let me pack the sand's wet meat all around him, lying still and embarrassed like a child being dressed. I Packed it on him like a dumpling, like I knew what I was doing. He seemed to like it more than he let on. I could see his smile through the upper most layer raising the sand, refusing to be hidden.
He told me he felt sticky then. Sticky good. He felt more certain. No more
Light (out) bleeding out and through like honey. No more of that man down the beach trying to fill him, he said. He didn't like the way that man did it. He rolled over to look back over to the screaming cave. It looked like a giant mouth against the burning sky, chapped rock lips braced against the harsh ocean wind. I gave him him a second to look before I took my last two quarters and filled his sandy eye holes with them like he told me to.
He left me then, left me with a sick a feeling and a freezing left foot on account of the shoe he had taken with him. I'd lost the shoe when I had to lace him up in the back with it's string. The ocean had grabbed it with its large water-scoop hands when it had rolled up to take him, had swept up my water bottle too.
He called back to me after I sent him off, laced up into the surf like a message in a bottle. He looked happy, curving into a large smile as he floated out "Don't tell him where I went!" He called back in a breath of sand as he bobbed and bobbed.
I found his real body three and a half weeks later. Found it off in that cave. He was trapped under a rock, right next to his sea salted notebook. The cops wouldn't believe me for the longest time, said I smelled like coconuts and alcohol, didn't trust my no-shirt and one shoe. I had gone to elementary school with one of them. He didn't remember me. Not through my beard and glasses.
The body under the rock wasn't sanded up. It wasn't the same one I had set out into the surf, but it was. Just much more solid. Solid and certain, without the sand. It looked normal, like me, just empty and dead. It must have been his desperation that I had seen, running out when it could get free enough. If only it could have remembered why it was out there, hadn't just run on fear.
One of the cops remembered him. asked me how I found him. I didn't tell him, but it was okay. He wasn't listening. I pressed my face to the body then and saw how the water leaked through. It leaked out in all the places his desperation had fled, where his flesh was ripped and curled. If he had been a checker board, the man who had found me on that beach three weeks before would have been the white boxes while this one here under the rock was the black.
I knew I had sent him off good when I saw his black-checkered half there under the rock, arm gnawed and ripped at. He had persevered like a lizard dropping it's tail, letting his desperate spirit free to float right down that ocean, balancing on the edge of every wave, while his doomed half lay alone, with no one to accompany it, but no one inside to care.
He had some secretes in his notebook, but the cop had gathered up the pulp too quickly for me to see it. I was sure the information could be strained out.
I just couldn't believe his white checkered half had wriggled out of the rest of him, had floated in its forgetful sheath down that current, packing in sand to fill his missing black checkers. He had slipped right through to the ferryman like that, I was sure; letting him take his quarters so that he could float on his own. Was staring up scared right now, grainy red eyes trained on Persephone from those empty sandholes.
I wondered then if that one, the white checkers, had a notebook, if. Had the rest of the one that I had seen. I couldn't tell if it was all there from the pulp. If he brought his half down there, it could be scorched dry, I thought, to help him remember, to haunt him as he roamed free in the wonderful darkness that filled his holes and never ever exposed them.
Ripped right through me, he did. Said he didn't know how. just stood there wavering and not knowing how. I tried my best to help him.
I rolled him around over the wet sand when he bade me to, but nothing would stick. He tried to do the same for me, but his hands just ripped right through, eyes drooping as he tried, swooshing and swooshing his impossible arms. The rest of his body began to droop too, to let the sun shine through too hard. He pawed at me then, not trying to roll me anymore, but trying to hold on. My clothes just breezed away, rippled by his heat.
I asked him again if he knew how he had gotten here. He looked startled and peeked all around as if someone was after him. I heard someone crying, echoing out from a cave down the beach somehow. I could still barley see the man in front of me when I heard it, he was just a slight shape in the sand, as if he was drawn out with its darker grains. I scratched my beard and sitting up, drank water from a bottle I had found.
I asked if he knew how I could help him. He stopped then and rose up, wavering harder. He told me to pull him back together. To sand him up, to fill up his holes.
I told him I had already tried, but he shook his head. Shook it and spoke through the wind, said "No. Not like you did before."
I cocked my head and crouched down, scooping up dry grains and casting them up and at him. They just slipped right through like they had before, through his ghostly holes, where he was letting the sun through. The grains seemed to stop him up for a second though, they blocked the sun for a second before tumbling out of him and back onto the toasted beach. He shook his head again and I saw his eyes droop lower. He looked frustrated as he tried to grab for my hand. I got the idea, held my hand up as if he had grabbed it. Moved it with his hand as he led me off towards the surf. We stopped at a place where the water hit the beach and washed away, a place I had liked to sit in. I saw that the sand was darker there. He nodded at me and pointed, ruffling his hair with his left hand, seeming almost surprised that he could touch himself. I picked up some handfuls and looked at him. He nodded again and bowed his shoulders
"Yes," I heard again on the wind. The screaming started back up down the beach. He lay down and let me pack the sand's wet meat all around him, lying still and embarrassed like a child being dressed. I Packed it on him like a dumpling, like I knew what I was doing. He seemed to like it more than he let on. I could see his smile through the upper most layer raising the sand, refusing to be hidden.
He told me he felt sticky then. Sticky good. He felt more certain. No more
Light (out) bleeding out and through like honey. No more of that man down the beach trying to fill him, he said. He didn't like the way that man did it. He rolled over to look back over to the screaming cave. It looked like a giant mouth against the burning sky, chapped rock lips braced against the harsh ocean wind. I gave him him a second to look before I took my last two quarters and filled his sandy eye holes with them like he told me to.
He left me then, left me with a sick a feeling and a freezing left foot on account of the shoe he had taken with him. I'd lost the shoe when I had to lace him up in the back with it's string. The ocean had grabbed it with its large water-scoop hands when it had rolled up to take him, had swept up my water bottle too.
He called back to me after I sent him off, laced up into the surf like a message in a bottle. He looked happy, curving into a large smile as he floated out "Don't tell him where I went!" He called back in a breath of sand as he bobbed and bobbed.
I found his real body three and a half weeks later. Found it off in that cave. He was trapped under a rock, right next to his sea salted notebook. The cops wouldn't believe me for the longest time, said I smelled like coconuts and alcohol, didn't trust my no-shirt and one shoe. I had gone to elementary school with one of them. He didn't remember me. Not through my beard and glasses.
The body under the rock wasn't sanded up. It wasn't the same one I had set out into the surf, but it was. Just much more solid. Solid and certain, without the sand. It looked normal, like me, just empty and dead. It must have been his desperation that I had seen, running out when it could get free enough. If only it could have remembered why it was out there, hadn't just run on fear.
One of the cops remembered him. asked me how I found him. I didn't tell him, but it was okay. He wasn't listening. I pressed my face to the body then and saw how the water leaked through. It leaked out in all the places his desperation had fled, where his flesh was ripped and curled. If he had been a checker board, the man who had found me on that beach three weeks before would have been the white boxes while this one here under the rock was the black.
I knew I had sent him off good when I saw his black-checkered half there under the rock, arm gnawed and ripped at. He had persevered like a lizard dropping it's tail, letting his desperate spirit free to float right down that ocean, balancing on the edge of every wave, while his doomed half lay alone, with no one to accompany it, but no one inside to care.
He had some secretes in his notebook, but the cop had gathered up the pulp too quickly for me to see it. I was sure the information could be strained out.
I just couldn't believe his white checkered half had wriggled out of the rest of him, had floated in its forgetful sheath down that current, packing in sand to fill his missing black checkers. He had slipped right through to the ferryman like that, I was sure; letting him take his quarters so that he could float on his own. Was staring up scared right now, grainy red eyes trained on Persephone from those empty sandholes.
I wondered then if that one, the white checkers, had a notebook, if. Had the rest of the one that I had seen. I couldn't tell if it was all there from the pulp. If he brought his half down there, it could be scorched dry, I thought, to help him remember, to haunt him as he roamed free in the wonderful darkness that filled his holes and never ever exposed them.