A Short Story in Three Parts
A Day at Sea
It was sunrise. I stood from soft sand, eyes on the horizon; the others sat, marveling, in awe. Broken seashells crunched beneath my sandy feet until a cleansing wave of warm water washed over them.
The ocean was pleasant; it replaced the dense air around my feet, then around my legs, and then the water was at my waist. Never stopped moving. Never turned around. Not until I paused to float on my back. I opened my eyes to see that the sun was then hitched high above the horizon, somewhere behind the thick clouds, and I was surrounded by the long, wide ocean—the skyline.
The sun rose in the east and set in the west, always; then it was no different, only I was free. I swam, and kept on, until I came to the mailbox; I opened it and took out the red envelope. Then, I climbed the ladder onto the lower deck, went to the hamper, found a towel, dried off.
The house sat tall above the middle of the ocean, somewhere far from land. I stared at the heavy mass of sea breathing below me. It stretched to the very edge of my perception. I stood, pondering the profound depth of that mass. Water and the sky were all I saw, and all I could see. I sat by the edge of the wet lower deck, as the sun set upon the liquid skyline; as the sun fell further, everything turned black.
A Night at Sea
When darkness surrounded the house, I stood, watching it all, for a while; before creeping through the door.
Some thin streak of light hung from somewhere. Nausea and exhaustion wrestled me to the ground and stomped me out; curiosity joined in at some point. Wet thunder crashed onto the lower deck of the house. Then the lights came on.
The place was tastefully furnished. Clean, pristine table sets and couches on clean old oak wood floors. The walls in the wide halls held sleek, surreal paintings and old jazz records on display.
I heard a noise, down at the end of the first hallway, by the staircase. I thought it was a staircase. I thought about turning, running outside, and jumping back into the water. Instead, I crept close to the noise as it grew, and grew, and then I heard the music. I recognized it. It was Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. I remembered it. We used to stay up through the warm night, during those summers—now so sore. Those days ache and burn for recovery. They cry and crawl to lost hopes.
The staircase was, in fact, a great big one. It must have led to the top of the towering retreat, wrapping around and around, giving dozens and dozens of opportunities to reconsider. The winds were knocking; no one's home! As I approached the top of the stairs, the house began to sway.
I crawled to the top. In the hall upstairs, a record player spun vinyl, while a whistle from the fourth room accompanied; the free flowing trumpet blared fierce melodies, and the whistle mounted. As the house bobbed and weaved; I heard windows shatter and water swarm in, downstairs. I hit the ground, along with the record player. The music skipped; I heard violent winds and the water rushing, then quickly picked myself up.
I stumbled past the broken record player and into the fourth room. I saw, through the window, out of the dark, it looked as if the entire ocean had formed one gigantic wave, closing in on the house. It hit, and the house collapsed into soft sand beneath my feet.
Dawn at Sea
Before the house collapsed, someone was there, in the fourth room. I knew exactly who. So certain, I hadn't even thought to look; not before I crash landed on the shoreline with the others.
“That’s a crazy story,” said one of them.
“Yes—and how did you get here?” I returned and gave a wry look to each of them. They traded strange looks among themselves. As my head turned upward, I saw dim stars stuck to a blue-gray canvas of open space above us. Lost hopes. Missed chances.
“Well,” the tall woman began, “I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure I came to the beach to search for something I lost as a kid,” she said uncertainly.
The small man, lying down on the sand, stared at the stars and asked, “You mean like a necklace or something?” I felt the sand between my hands; the rubble from the house was gone. When she finished scoffing, the tall woman answered:
“No, not a necklace or something. Why did you come here?” she asked him.
The man spoke with his arms spread out to the side, grabbing a handful of the beach, "I can't even remember, it feels like I've been here all my life,” he said. I felt the same.
Nearby, an older woman sat at the shoreline, smoking a cigarette. She was wrinkled and pale, and she looked like a statue; like she’d been there, hunched over, puffing that cigarette, for all of time. When I asked for a smoke, she gave me a sad look, ashed the cigarette, and told me she had no more. That’s almost all she ever said. She stared outward, sat tight, and waited patiently for daylight. My intrigue was the cherry of her cigarette; as gentle waves gave little wet kisses to her legs, and the sand melted, morphed, and reshaped beneath her at the touch of each kiss.
I turned my head to the man and the woman who spoke to him. She had adopted a sour tone, “You haven’t moved once—since we’ve been here. You’ve just been lying on your back, you must have sand all in your hair—”
“Why do you care? I haven’t seen you do anything to help yourself, much less me, or anyone else. It seems to me like you don’t have any answers. So… it seems to me that-"
It did seem to me that he was overreacting a bit, but it was always the same: She cried and walked quickly, clumsily, down the beach; her feet pushed up the sand with each step. He'd reach into his pocket and pull out the baggie; take out two little pills, crush them, and slide the blue powder into his mouth. He wiggled his tongue three times before sniffing his hands clean. Always. The light had broken in the sky. I looked up, and the stars were gone; They’ll be back.
The gray-haired woman still looked out to the horizon—becoming clear now. Her cigarette still burned, somehow; thick smoke poured out into the morning air. She could never be bothered. The small man was, for all intents and purposes, not there. The younger woman was—literally— gone. I sat alone with the older woman. We listened to the calm waves breaking in front of us, and waited for the sun to rise from behind the horizon; then she said her riddle: “Today… Today will be the day.”