re: previous

And then I heard it: a queer whistling that echoed through the horrific cubes and towers of those ancient, cyclopean peaks - breathless, tuneless piping; as if some eldritch power lurked there among the endless clouds, and with whispering words beckoned us all onwards, onwards, to those lofty, lonely heights at the mountains of madness.

A video

I took this from someone else's tumblr.

a scallop

"I brought you sea-glass," I said, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, "And a shell. I think it was a clam."

She smiled at me from her chair, and held out her left hand, palm up. I gave it to her, and she felt its wavy ridges and fluted edges. It looked soft, chalky.

"Pretty," she said.

"Have you eaten?" I said.

"A little."

"Are you hungry?"

"No. I'm fine." She put the shell on the table in front of her, and turned to face me. She held her hand out, and I took it in mine.

"I don't think it was a clam," she said, and smiled again, slightly.

The sun was setting as we walked outside together, bleeding crimson across the golden-blue of sea and sky.

"Sky-blue," I said, looking at her. "That's my favorite. Like your eyes. When it gets grey and cloudy from the sand."

"I always liked the bottle-green," she said, staring out towards the water.

We stood and watched as the sun fell slowly into the horizon.

The sand was still warm beneath my feet. I dug my toes in, and wiggled them. My nose was still running.

"My eyes itch," I said.

She said nothing. I shuffled my sandy feet a step or two closer to her, sand up to my ankles.

"I don't think it's too late," I said.

"You know it is," she said, looking towards me.

"Let's talk to the doctor first," I said. "He said that he thought...let's talk to him first, after we get home."

The last rays of light were struggling over the water. I looked down at my sunken feet and wiggled my toes wider apart. Little mountains of sand rose and fell, like waves.

"Would you really want to try again?"

My feet were getting cold in the cool sand. I looked over at her, but she was staring out over the water, eyes grey.

I held her hand as we walked slowly back up the beach, helping her to find her way over the rocks when we turned up the path. The house was dark.

I dipped my sandy feet in the water bucket on the porch and kicked the droplets off as best I could.

"No," I said, "never."

I helped her climb the stairs up to the porch, and steadied her as she put one foot in the bucket, took it out, and put the other one in. She was looking towards the water again.

"I'm sure I wouldn't either," she said, abruptly. " I don't think I ever wanted to." I waited, my hands on her shoulders.

"How would we even raise it?" she said, blue-grey eyes searching for my face in the twilight.

"The usual way, I imagine," I said. The paint on the porch was grey and cracked.

"But I could never - I mean, I would never be able to-" she stopped, spent.

"I'm so tired," she said , after a minute.

"Shall we go in?"

She turned away from me to walk towards the door, and stumbled. I caught her arm. Her hair was pulling out of its loose ponytail, and some fine strands drifted down onto her neck. She looked up at the sky and exhaled a great, even breath. We walked inside.

"It's a scallop," she said. "The ridges."

We were back at the table. I inspected my feet in the lamplight. I could feel grains of sand in between my toes. They would probably end up in my bed.

"Not a clam?"

She smiled and gave me the shell.

"Not a clam."

It was pinkish and transparent in the light, like a watercolor. The inside was smooth and white. One of the small fins at the base of the fan was cracked.

"Here," I said, and she searched for it uncertainly before I placed it back in her hand, and she ran her thumb up and down the ridges.

"I hate that I don't want to try again," she said, venomously. "I should want to."

"Why? It could have been even worse," I said.

"Worse? I can't see."

"It could have been worse than that. You-"

"I what? I could have died? I wish I had."

The shell cracked. I looked at her. She dropped half of it, and clenched the rest in her fist.

"I hate this house."

"I like it here," I said. "I like the sound of the waves."

"I want to leave."

"We'll leave tomorrow, then."

"I don't want to go back home."

"We'll go somewhere else."

"Where?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"I thought I would like the ocean," she said.

"Maybe you would like a different ocean?"

"I don't want to go anywhere. But I don't want to stay here."

An empty wine bottle on a shelf, full of sand, cast a long shadow on the wall

"Are you hungry?" I said.

"No, I'm not fucking hungry," she said, quietly.

I sat there with her, at the table, as she turned the scallop in her palm, over, and over.

The sun rose in the morning, and while it was still cool I walked up and down the beach, collecting sea-glass.