My Writer's Cramp Pieces

Slapping, Slapping the Trampled Sand

This story is for the Writer's Cramp (24 hours/ less than 1,000 words) prompt: You are on a walk in an area which is unfamiliar to you. It is getting dark and you realize you are lost. What do you do?

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Slapping, Slapping the Trampled Sand

I am walking down the beach path when the sky turns ominously dark. I hadn’t expected it. I glance down at my watch. It’s only five o’clock? Why is it dark then?

I look about me. All the picnickers have gone. The sandcastle builders have fled the dampness of the incoming fog. Even the friendly seagulls have flown away to their warm, feathered nests. I am alone beside the roar of the ocean, pounding, pounding at the sand.

My bare feet suddenly feel the dampness. What was warm friendly heat-containing sand is now dank and cold as a winter night. Where has the sun gone? Have I missed the tangerine closure of day?

I look out to the sea. Even there the darkness impinges on my soul. Foggy grayness hides the horizon. No ships are passing. No seals swim across the silent swells of ocean. All is still except the crashing of the ocean water, slapping, slapping the cold, clammy sand.

My legs are aching. My stomach roars like thunder. My throat is parched from crying. Only my heart has no complaint. Why should it? It is broken, cracked, dead from disillusionment.

I turn about to allow my eyes to ferret out the direction to my car. It is unsafe to walk the beaches in the dark, unsafe to roam where only empty people dwell. But the fog is coming in too fast. I can see no further than my outstretched hand. I am lost. I cannot see my way.

Sniffles attack at that moment. I pull out my well-watered hankie. I have retreated into using cloth for my nose, for it is chafed from the roughness of too many tissues.In the darkness, it doesn’t matter if my tears begin again. No one can see me. No one will tell me to buckle up and forget.

“Are you alright?”

The voice startles me. I back away, plunging one foot into the waves. The loose sand is slippery. I start to fall.

He catches me and holds me up.

I am shivering then, shivering from fear, from cold, from loss.

“Who are you?” I ask, my voice as much a stranger as the man.

“Chris,” he says, helping me to a boulder where he plops me down as if I were a small child with untied shoes.

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he says. “I was worried. You seemed upset. I . . . “

I breathe in the scent of the man. He smells of redwood trees and campfires. I smile. I must be dreaming. No one on a beach could smell of the forest . . . of safety.

Perhaps he sees my smile. He sits down across from me. “Do you walk here often?” he asks, forgetting the questions he had a moment before.

I shake my head. Strangely, the fog has lifted somewhat. I can see his face in the mists. He is not frightening at all. He feels familiar, like a brother, a friend, an acquaintance I have long known. I examine his face – the long bridge of his nose, the smooth chin, the quiet reflection in his eyes as he studies me. For some reason, we are smiling at each other, smiling into each other’s eyes.

“I know who you are,” he says. “You’re Donna, my sister’s roommate.”

Suddenly, I understand why the man seems so familiar. I have seen him before, several times in fact. Donna’s brother – the carpenter, the one who . . . I sigh and breathe in a long, comforting breath.

“Chris?” I ask.

He nods and then stands up. “I’m freezing. How about a cup of coffee? The pier is just down there,” he says, indicating the direction with a head thrust and a wiggled left eyebrow.

I laugh softly. His smell, the twitch in his eyebrow, the way his eyes seem concerned about me, yet he’s not asking me to explain – I like him instinctively.

Like an echo, I hear the refrain of Donna's complaints. “You're such a slob,” she always scolds Chris with such love in her voice I’m often jealous because I have no siblings

I stand and brush off the back of my jeans and nod to Chris. “Coffee would be great,” I say.

The fog is clearing now. It’s no longer dark. The sky is streaked with long white patches, “strings of pearls” my father used to call them -- "the treasures of the sky."

I smile and fall in beside Chris. Together we walk down the path along the surf. The water is still slapping the ground, tumbling old sand with new. If I hadn’t met Chris, I’d have been heading back now, returning to an empty room and more tears. It’s nice to be ambling in a new direction -- toward the pier, a comforting cup of coffee, and a sky full of treasures -- long white strings of pearls.



860 words

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