The Beach Again
Short Story
Stephen Collicoat
So, we're on the beach again.
The two of us, lying on the same towel. Making sure that no flesh
touches while isolation, loneliness and sexual dread rushes up and down
between our bodies, like the blurring rush of a bullet train.
You stand, brushing sand - fine white sand, which glitters, in
pinpointed light - from your thighs. The sand falls in a shower of glass. A
city collapses in a storm of dazzled light. A window explodes. It's the
restaurant in Algiers. I flinch from the shards.
I want to say something. Anything that will keep you beside me, even
though love is twisting like a knife in my gut. But already you're
shrinking into the distance. Swirling around like water in an open bath. A
tiny figure jerking like a hooked black frog.
Then you're standing in front of me. Huge. A tenement of flesh. Your
legs are giant towers. Story after story of smooth flesh. You keep
arriving and collapsing. Your body folds and unfolds like an umbrella.
Your hair floats in a cloud. Even as your head shrinks to a thimble
size, resting on vast shoulders, your hair weaves into the light and sky.
You shrink to normal size and stoop down. Obsessively straightening
your side of the towel, although it's as smooth as a sheet of blue tin.
Your face balloons as I watch. You wear your gums. The inside cheeks
are raw and gleaming, hanging like curtains, while your tongue darts back
and forth like a flame. I strain to hear what you say. I adjust the
tuning and volume controls, but keep slipping from the station. I hear
nothing. Perhaps the thud of surf. Nothing else. And you've gone again.
I turn to see the book you were reading minutes before. The book you
were hiding from me with your back turned so that I couldn't see the
words. Your selfish revelation. I clearly see the book. It's a thick
paperback that sizzles on the blue tin towel, like a slab of barbecued fish.
I can't read the title, but I sense that the book contains all the
words I'll ever need. All the answers I ever sought. The back cover
confirms this is the ultimate answer. Critics shriek with joy.
But the back cover also shows a photo of the author. He's hanging half
out of a wheelchair, smiling vacantly. Words spurt from a deep gash
above his right eye, falling into the book. The words that you have read
disappear and the words you are about to read haven't been formed. So
you're reading one word at a time and hoping that you don't lose the
thread of the argument because there is no going back and there's no way to
flick to the final page to see how it all ends.
The author's smile petrifies into a rictus grin. You realize that he's
losing his mind as he gives it to you. A noble act, but probably
useless. You're in a race against time. Already they've closed the West Wing
of his mind and the lights are being doused all over Europe.
Anyway, it's not only his mind that's in trouble. The laptop that he's
using is running low on battery power. You can see the red warning lamp
faintly blinking through the thin flesh covers of the book, pulsing
like a desperate heart. You hope that this isn't what's happening out
there. That you're only finally receiving the truth the moment the universe
dies.
The book slips from your grasp. You see it is smeared with suntan cream
that has been dripping in sly obscenity onto the towel. The cream
begins flooding out like a paint can, and now a burst dam. The printed word
is blurred, the ink running as a single tear. You see the book sinking
like a scuttled boat in a sea of cream and lunge forward, trying to
grasp it. Wipe the mess away. Prize the pages open, but your fingers can't
grip. Truth is drowning. The book wails in fear.
You look down and see your fingers could never grasp the book because
there's a thick web of flesh joining each digit. It's disgusting, but
it's you. Monstrous, but then all flesh is finally sad.
And we're lying together on a towel on the beach.
It's the end of time.
The Beach Again© COPYRIGHT 2004 Stephen Collicoat.
Reproduction prohibited without permission from the author.
09/10/04
