See Shells

She sat staring out to sea. Her gaze fixed on the horizon, the point where sea and sky joined, the place where two worlds touch.

Pebbles underneath pressed against her, the body of her coat offered little protection to dull the feeling. By concentrating she could make one part of her body feel the pain leaving the other areas numb. This point of exaggerated connection brought an intensity that was unworldly.

 

In the distance she could hear the excited voices of a family playing on the beach. She tried to tune them out, to return to the meditative state of horizon and prickly pain but they were too loud. She knew the exaggerated noises of enjoyment were really a piece of drama to encourage her to join in. Her family, desperately worried about her, just wanted her to return to normal. To play games like she used to. To be one of them again.

 

She glanced toward them and saw them looking back before they immediately went back to their game with an increased energy to disguise the fact they had been caught looking. But she didn’t need to catch them, she knew they were always looking, always caring, always sympathetic. Too caring, too sympathetic. They wanted to wrap her in loving cotton wool to drive away the pain, to protect her from her emotions. The problem was the pain was inside and the love they surrounded her with just trapped the feelings deeper inside her.

 

If she concentrated on the pain, focussed on that, she could drive out some of the other thoughts. She was so thin there was little to protect her bones from the insistent pebbles. She thought of standing and folding her coat to make a thicker cushion but just the thought tired her.

 

She dropped her eyes from the distant point and they fell to her legs. Before she could feel revulsed she moved quickly onto the stones and pebbles around her. Shades of grey, white, orange and sand colours surrounded her. A quick glance gave them a uniformity but scrutiny revealed the differences, the irregularities, the things that made each one unique.

 

And as she stared, her mind momentarily freed from the burdens it carried, other things revealed themselves. Fragments of glass made smooth by the actions of sea and shore. Bricks worn to tiny red spongelike shapes and shells. 

 

The shells, perhaps knowing their value, hid amongst the pebbles but once she had spotted the first others seemed to magically appear. It reminded her of how, when the issue that caused her so much pain had first surfaced, it seemed to be mentioned in every TV programme, every radio show, every newspaper and magazine. Constant reminders as if the world wanted her to never to be able to forget. So much so in the end she just had to tune out of real life.

 

She leant to one side to pick up the shell she had first noticed. Doing so increased the pressure around her hip and the pain from the pebbles made her wince. She glanced to her family in case they had noticed but they were consumed by the game.

 

Shuffling to ease the pressure she held the shell in the palm of her hand. It was nothing special, the sort an animal might have lived, in but it was beautiful in its own way. As sunlight caught it areas showed their translucence, others a rich deep pink vein.

 

A distant voice echoed through to her. Her mother’s voice imploring her to listen to the shell to hear the sea. So clear was the voice she glanced again to her family before registering this was a younger voice, a voice before concern had changed its tone, filled it with crushing care. A voice from her past.

 

She brought the shell to her ear as she had as a child. She stared out to the horizon and closed her eyes. And there for a moment the sound of the sea. Not the sea in front of her, not as close, as insistent and without the sounds of the pebbles being turned by the waves.

 

This was the sea of dreams. Calming

 

Then she could hear her mother shouting, and then the others. It was time to go. She looked at the shell in her hand and made the decision. She would leave it, leave it where it belonged, safe, in the right place. She gently laid it down as near the exact spot the she had picked it up from. Then she gently prised herself from the beach quickly wrapping her coat around her to hide her body from spying eyes. She turned and began to walk back to the car.

 

 

When the car had gone so the questions started. What had he heard? The shell was unusually quiet despite the demands of the beach. In a soft voice he tried to find the words

 

‘It was not,’ he paused, ‘not like the usual. Not what I was expecting, not what I wanted to hear…….’

They waited.