The White Sea

The boy sits on the sand. The multicoloured grains filter through his fingers and pile up on his knees. Images of earlier events flood his head and he wonders how it came to be that he is sitting there alone. He pulls up the zipper of his lemon sweater. The wind reminds him of that morning. He was woken by a tickling breeze that infiltrated his bedroom through the open window. He tries to recall how he had felt upon opening his eyes that morning. He sees white.

There is no one else on the shore except a small girl building a sandcastle in the distance. The boy squints, his eyes searching for the child’s mother or father. He remembers hearing his mother’s voice, a gentle call from the bottom of the stairs, warning him of the eggs and toast which would soon be cold. He had no appetite that morning, but he force fed himself and kissed his mother goodbye. Before leaving for school, he did a full circle around the house. After a moment of realizing there was no one around, he dropped to his knees like a man left to beg.

The boy lies on the sand. His eye catches a tiny black bird. He follows it across the yellow and pink gradient. His eyelids fall. He thinks of the nausea that had instantly hit him upon walking into school that day. He remembers hovering over the cool porcelain toilet; his shaking hands gripping its slippery sides. He can almost hear the sound of his heaving echoing back into his ears. The boy scratches his head and grazes a small wound. The sting makes his mouth water. He tries to piece together the time between getting intimate with the toilet and waking up in the nurse’s office. He sees white.

Daylight is rapidly disappearing. The boy looks back to where the girl had been but the castle stands alone. He swings himself up and onto his feet, walking towards the deserted art. Upon getting closer to it, the boy notices two paths of footsteps. He reckons that the child’s caretaker came back to retrieve her. He wonders about the girl’s resistance. Had she fought to stand by her work? He reaches the miniscule monument and takes a knee. Leaning towards it, he examines its details. He wonders how much time the child put into her creation. He observes her precision and how calculated she had been with each indent and the placement of the towers. He passes his fingers over the perfectly rounded edges of the pillars. He absorbs the product of the girl’s solitude: a small piece of architecture standing proudly on the shore.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a week old assignment. The red lettering lacks the warmth and comfort that it had once emulated. The perfect score makes his stomach turn.

The boy’s eyes fill with tears. For a few minutes, he sits, contemplating the initial emotion of that morning: emptiness. The man had left without a note, without a goodbye. Had snuck out quietly before dusk. Had been the one to drop an indigo handkerchief in the backyard. Had hovered over him with worrying eyes. Had forgotten to meet him at the shore.
The boy weeps. He weeps harder. His head hangs between his knees as the sand below him darkens.