I've been working on something new the last few weeks, a little fiction novel to kind of break up all the fantasy writing I've been bogged down with. I like writing fantasy, I really do, but sometimes a more realistic, fiction-based idea takes hold in my brain, and I just need to get it out. It's sort of a weird shift for me, going from fantasy to generic fiction. My fantasy voice is very... balanced, I'd say. There's a fair amount of descriptive writing supplemented by dialogue, and internal monologue, but my fiction voice has always been a bit more straight-to-the-point. I like to write with heavy use of dialogue and limited descriptive text, probably because the normal world isn't as interesting to describe as a made-up fantasy realm.
Anyway, I got this idea in my head for a little fiction novel a few weeks ago that I've called As the Sea is Cold, and have been working away at it. I don't want to give away too much of the plot yet, but hopefully it'll be very bittersweet, realistic, and touching... which again, is something different for me. I like to drag my fantasy characters through the emotional ringer! But to encourage myself to keep writing this fiction I thought I'd share a part of the first chapter with you all and see what kind of feedback you all have for me. Personally, I'm pretty proud of it so far. It's been a while since I've written anything other than fantasy or poetry, so it's a work in progress. I just envisioned this novel that's heavy on the dialogue, heavy with realism, layered in a sort of melancholic mood... hopefully I'm getting that through!
But let me know what you think!
“It’s one of the oldest memories I have, learning to swim. I remember… I remember I was young, much too young to be swimming in the ocean. And it was cold. It was early spring, the snow had only melted a week or two earlier. It was way too cold for someone so young to be swimming in the ocean. I was shivering on the shore; I remember the sound my knees made as they clanked together like some wind-up monkey toy, you know, with the cymbals? Even the sand was cold…”
“Even the sand?”
“Yeah, that’s how you know the water’s going to be truly fucking freezing, when the sand’s cold. And I’m standing there, shivering my little ass off while he waded off into the surf. When I remember it, it feels like I’m looking at him from the sand, like each wave that broke on the shore hid him from me for a second or two, and every time I held my breath. One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, until the wave would die and I’d see him out there again, literally, only feet from the shore. But I was so little, you know?”
“Then what?”
“Then he turned around and hollered at me to come to him. I didn’t want to, I was scared shitless. Here I am staring off at the grey sea, the same colour as the sky, I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began, rubbing my hands together to keep warm, but I knew I had to go to him. I knew if I didn’t he’d give me that look. The one where he’d purse his lips together, and he’d get these three, little lines between his eyes, like I’d disappointed him more than anything ever could. I hated that look. Even then, even as such a little kid, I hated that look. I knew what it meant. Utter disappointment. So I shuffled my way to the water, stiff as a board from the cold, and dipped a toe in. It was so cold, that I still have no feeling in that toe.”
“Come on.”
“I shit you not. The big tow on my left foot – completely numb.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Nope.”
“Here, touch it.”
“I’m not touching your big toe.”
“Just touch it, I swear to God, I won’t feel a thing. Touch it.”
“Okay, okay… did you feel that?”
“Nope. Not a thing. I felt nothing.”
“That’s so weird.”
“I know, right? So anyway, I’m standing there, no feeling in my big toe, and he’s just hollering at me now. ‘Jeremy, get in here! Right now!’ And I know there’ll be hell to pay if I don’t, so I take a deep breath and immediately charge into the waves. It doesn’t take long before I’m on my toes, and by now my body’s, like, in shock because of how cold the fucking water is. The waves are crashing on me, tugging me every-which-way. I can see one big one coming, it’s already foaming at the top, and it hits me, and it knocks me down. I go under. I nearly drowned, I remember that. Only it took an eternity. I flailed my arms, kicked my legs, but I couldn’t tell up from down, somehow the water dragged me out into a deeper part, I mean, it wasn’t too deep, but when you’re just a kid, a couple feet of water seems like the entire ocean. My whole body went cold; I tried to scream, but just ended up sucking in water. I never really had that moment, the one that you’re supposed to get before you die, where your whole life flashes before your eyes.”
“I think it’s a myth.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, well… at least, I never experienced it.”
“Oh. Right…”
“What happened next?”
“Oh, um, well I was there in the water, thinking this was were I was going to die, here, on my first attempt at swimming. How embarrassing. But then, out of the cold, wet dark his hand plunges down and grabs hold of my arm and yanks me up above the water. I had a bruise there that lasted weeks, where his hand touched me. When I came up, coughing up water, rubbing my eyes, I caught his look. I almost wish he would’ve thrown me back to the sea.”
“It was that bad?”
“It was that scowl, you know, the one that reeks of angry disappointment, I don’t know what the word is for it.”
“Vexed?”
“Yeah! Vexed. You know all the words. He was always vexed when he looked at me.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
“Oh, he did. He wasn’t like your dad. You lucked out with your parents. But that day, the way he pulled me out of the ocean, the way he looked at me. It was like I couldn’t have done more to disappoint him. I wasn’t his son, not the son he wanted, that’s for sure. And this, this is just like him. He knew how much I hated this place. He knew how much that experience jarred me. This is his last gift of spite, leaving me the summer house.”
“What do you think you’ll do with it?”
“Sell it.”
“Your sister doesn’t want it?”
“She’s down in the keys. Why would she want to come all the way up here to the grey, cold ocean, when she’s got the blue waters of the Caribbean at her doorstep? Anyway… what time is it?”
“It’s late.”
“We’d better sleep.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Owen?”
“Yeah, Jer?”
“Thanks again for coming with me.”
“Of course.”
***
“Shit that’s bright! Close it!” Grey light seeped in through the crack in the blinds. Jeremy pulled the covers up around his face and scowled at Owen. He stood before the window, the light was ringing his head like a halo, shimmering and dancing at the edges of the dark room. One hand rubbed the back of his neck; between his fingers Jeremy could see the dark ink stain that made up a blotchy freckle. Owen had always hated that mark. He’d rub and rub at it to try and smudge it away, but it never erased. His fingertips grazed the skin softly, delicately. “Owen. Close it.”
“You said we had to get up bright and early.”
“Yeah well now I’m saying we should sleep in for a bit longer.”
“We’re so close, we could’ve driven through the night and been there an hour or two after midnight.”
“We could’ve if you’d drive at all.”
Owen chuckled. “I don’t like to drive.”
“Yeah.”
“Come on. Up.” Owen threw the blinds wide and light ate up the room. Jeremy rubbed his eyes. Too bright. Little white and red sparks fired off under his lids as he dug his knuckles into them. He heard Owen’s footsteps echo cross the motel room, the squeak as the shower sprang to life, spewing out lukewarm water that smelt more like chlorine than water. He opened his eyes. What a shit-hole. Just another deadbeat motel along a cracked, worn highway. Outside he could hear the whistling sound of cars whizzing past, paying as much attention to the run-down motel as it deserved.
Somewhere between the hum of the heater and the hiss of the shower he fell asleep again. When he awoke the sun had heated his chest and the rickety old bed creating a nest of warmth. He burrowed deeper into the sheets.
“You gonna shower?”
“Nah.”
“You gonna get out of bed?” Owen’s grin was wide, his hair limp and wet as it clung to the sides of his face.
“Nah.”
Owen laughed. “Come on.”
His shirt, pants, and bunched up socks rained down on him. Defeated he heaved himself from bed, stretched in the sun and pulled on his clothes. Half an hour later they were back in the car, bouncing over uneven pavement, hurtling down the highway towards the coast.
“How’d you sleep?”
Owen shrugged.
“You didn’t sleep, did you.”
“No. Not really.”
“Why not?”
“It was too hot, too noisy, take your pick.”
“You take your pill?”
Owen turned to look out the window. “Yup,” he said to the passing cars and passing lives.
“It’s weird, I haven’t been back here in like, almost ten years, but I still remember this road. I remember every little sign and detail. Nothing’s ever changed. Nothing ever does. The older we get the more things stay the same.”
“Some things change.”
“No. We’re the ones that change. We’re constantly hurtling forwards at light speed, adapting, evolving. Our perception changes, our ideas change, but all around us, everything else stays the exact same. And then one day, you look around and then realize, ‘shit, I don’t even belong here anymore.’”
Owen was eyeing him. “You smoke while I was showering?”
Jeremy laughed. “No.”
“You get all philosophical when you smoke.”
“And you get all giddy. Maybe you should smoke more often.”
Owen looked at his hands. “Yeah.”
On the back of the steering wheel there was a little flap where the stitching had pulled and the leather was peeling away from the plastic frame. Jeremy’s finger always seemed to find that whole. He worried it open with his nails, picked at it. Above the wheel the sky was clear and blue, the best weather they had had the whole drive. I wonder if the weather will hold? Probably won’t. When has the weather ever been decent here? One more hill, and the horizon will open up to the sea and the grey clouds of the Atlantic will roll in.
“Wanna get some breakfast?” he asked. “There’s gotta be a McDonalds around here somewhere.”
“Jer–”
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t eat fast food. I was just testing. What is that anyway?”
“I’m just trying to be more healthy. I heard that fast food can make you more… you know, sad or whatever. Besides, you’re just trying to find ways to stall.”
“To stall?”
“You’ve been drawing out this drive ever since we left. That detour to go antiquing? Like you’ve ever been interested in antiquing.”
“I like old things!”
“And last night. You just conveniently felt tired of driving an hour or two from the beach house. We had to stay in that scuzzy motel.”
“Hey, I paid for it.”
“I know you don’t want to go back, Jer. You don’t have to hide it, but we’re going to have to get there eventually.”
He let out a sigh. “I guess your right.” The hole in the back of the steering wheel had become a chasm.
“You sure you wanna sell it? The beach house?”
He shrugged.
“Do you think… he’d of want that?”
“I don’t give a fuck about what he’d of wanted. That’s just what I’m gonna do with it. I told you, I just… don’t want it.”
Owen chewed his lip. Jeremy could see it out of the corner of his eye. It was always the bottom lip; he’d curl it up into his mouth, ever so gently, when he wasn’t sure if he should ask what was on his mind. Hesitation’s a swollen lip. “Does it have to do with what you told me last night?” he finally asked.
Jeremy snorted. “How about some music?” He fumbled with the dials and buttons until some twangy jingle and tinlike vocals came through the speakers advertising some used car lot out along the highway. A commercial for a travel agency, another for a mattress store, one for a laxative, a fourth for a local jewelry store. Why is it there are more ads on the radio than music? They sat there in silence, listening to the feigned happiness of strangers raving about the lowest prices on five karat gold necklaces. Their program of advertisements was broken with a song. A driving drum line pounded the beat forward with sad, melancholic strings and guitars dancing above.
Owen leaned forward and tinkered with the volume. “I love this song!” His slender fingers pushed the dial round, clicking as the volume rose. “Do my crying underwater, I can’t get down any father. All my drowning friends can see now there is no running from it…”
“Who is it?”
“The National.”
“The National? You and all your hipster bands.”
“They’re not a hipster band.”
“Well I’ve never heard of them. So they must be a hipster band.”
“Just because they don’t play on the top forty, doesn’t mean they’re ‘hipster’.”
The singer’s voice, filled with sadness, sorrow, boredom, droned on above the moving drum line and filled the silence between them. Beside him, he could see Owen bopping his head to the solemn beat. It made him smile.
“But I stay down with my demons… I stay down with my demons…”
Another song or two and their advertisement program returned to the air, another endless string of consumerist desires played out to the empty air between them. Jeremy cranked at the window, opening it a crack to let the cool, rushing air into the car. The smell of the approaching ocean filled his nostrils and made him grimace.
“Smell that?” Owen said, breathing in deep beside him.
“Yeah, seaweed and sour milk.” He plunged his hand into a compartment on the door and rummaged around in the trash until he found the crumpled box of cigarettes. He brought it to his mouth and the sharp smell of the smokes chased the rotting scent of the sea away. He pulled one out with mouth. “Want one?” he mumbled.
Owen took the box from him. “I thought you were gonna quit.”
“I am. In a bit.”
“Remember how hard it was for you to quit the first time?”
He nodded. “I’ll quit in a bit. It’s just easier right now to smoke, it takes off the edge.” He plunged his hand back into the compartment and found the lighter. It took a few flicks of his thumb before the red light sputtered out. The end of his cigarette turned to ash as the fire cleansed it.
“I think Clara was shocked to see you smoking at the funeral.” Owen took the lighter and lit his own cigarette.
One breath in and Jeremy already felt his muscles relax. The tension that had been building in his shoulders faded, his muscles unknotted, his mind quieted, he relaxed. “Yeah, well she never liked it when I smoked.”
“I didn’t know she was gonna be there.”
“Neither did I. I hadn’t talked to her since we’d broken up.” He exhaled a puff of smoke that lingered for a second before being sucked out through the crack in the window. “But he liked her, so I’m sure he would’ve appreciated it.”
“Your dad?”
“Mmhmm. He’d always said I’d lucked out with her. That no one else would ever like a sap like me. Maybe that’s why I had to break up with her.”
“To prove him wrong?”
Another long drag. “No.”
He glanced over at Owen. He held his cigarette between his pointer and middle finger. It hung delicately in the air, the red tip burning away, a thin trail of smoke snaking in the air about his face.
“Why did you?” Owen asked.
“What?”
“Break up with Clara?”
“I don’t know. It just wasn’t right. It was never right. For years it was like there was something between us, just keeping us at arms length with each other.”
“What could it have been?”
He shrugged. “We were younger when we started dating. And I suppose that’s what everyone else was doing at the time, coupling up. And I’d never cared to. I had my crushes, but there was never any depth to them, they were all superficial infatuations. But then, at a certain point, you start to wonder if there’s something wrong with you. When every guy and girl you know have paired off and give you those looks of pity, like, ‘Poor Jer, he doesn’t have a girlfriend of his own,’ as if having a girlfriend is the end-all and be-all of life. Fuck that. But I was so afraid of falling behind, so when Clara came along I latched on. When she fell for me I knew I’d break her heart.”
“She was the only girlfriend you’ve had, right?”
“Mmhmm. The only one.”
Owen tapped out his smoke and looked out the window. Jeremy glanced over at him; his bottom lip was wedged between his teeth again. “What?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“You always do that thing with your lip when you’ve got something you want to ask me, but aren’t sure if you should.”
“What thing?”
He smiled wide. “You bite your bottom lip. And it gets all swollen and red.”
“I do not!”
“Mmhmm. I’ve seen you do it so many times. So what is it? Spit it out.”
Owen was shaking his head and smiling. “I was just… I was wondering… do you miss her?”
“No.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“I told you, we just… weren’t a good fit. And I’d been pretending we were for far too long. We grew in different directions. What about you, aren’t you seeing that artist?”
Owen snorted. “Laurent?”
“Laurent,” he said the name with a heavy French accent.
Owen chuckled. “No. That wasn’t anything. We had coffee, like, twice, and in that time he never once asked about my photography. I could barely a word in, he spent the entire time talking about how prolific his own art was. Give me a break.”
“Yeah, he did seem like a pompous asshole.”
“You never met him!”
“I saw his picture when I creeped him on Facebook!”
“And from one picture you surmised that he was a pompous asshole?”
“It only takes on photo, Owen.”
“Ever heard of the saying, ‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover’?”
“Well was I wrong?”
Owen laughed and took a long drag from his cigarette. “No, you weren’t wrong.”
“See! Besides,” he stamped out his cigarette and flicked the butt out the window, “I always judge a book by its cover. Everyone judges everything by its appearance. Isn’t it your job to, like, know that? You’re a photographer.”
“My job. No, it’s not my job! My job is to…”
“Take pretty pictures?”
“Take pretty pictures!”
They were both laughing now as the car sped off the highway and through the seaside town. Maybe it was the warm sun and bright blue sky, or maybe it was Owen beside him, puffing away on the cigarette poised daintily between his fingers, but Jeremy felt a warm happiness within him, right in the centre of his chest. Happiness? Nah, can’t be that. My dad’s been in the ground for what, two weeks? Grief, that’s what should be there, shouldn’t it? Though the grief had never come. Not when he got the call from his sister that their dad had passed, not when Jeremy saw his father’s dead body, cold and white in the casket, not when the guests cried as they lowered his father’s remains into the ground. There was nothing, not grief, not anger, not relief… just nothing.
The car rolled down a hill, the ocean was straight ahead. The blue skies made it look less formidable today than usual. Still the white waves lapped at the shore, groping for something to pull back into its dark depths. Still the grey waters churned and tossed, an eternity of motion that never ceased, had always been.
The road curved and snaked by a number of tall summer beach homes that sat right on the water’s doorstep. Full of treasures that the greedy sea reached for. He became aware that Owen was watching him. “Which one is it?” Owen asked.
He nodded ahead. “That one.”
“The one with the grey shutters?”
“The one with the grey everything.” The sound of crinkling gravel as he steered the car from the road down the drive was like static over the radio. The car came to a slow halt, facing the ocean. Beside him Owen took one last drag from his cigarette and put it out. “We’re here,” he said.
“Yup.”
“…Should we get out?”
“Yeah…” They stumbled from the car, collected their bags and walked up the steps to the front door. Every step was a memory buried deep in Jeremy’s mind; his mother’s smile as she cut up watermelon to have on the beach; his sister’s laughter as she ran along the sand; his father’s clouded eyes, as grey as the ocean. This step was his mother’s cries, this one the stinging backhand of his father. This one his sister’s angry shouts, that one a broken vase. An entire lifetime of memories played out in those few simple steps to the front door. He fumbled for the key in his bags, unlocked the door, and welcomed back a world he had tried so desperately to suppress.