It's Time to Forget (SS, 2500 words)

ruzkin

Don't know quite what it means. Started as horror but I preferred to tone down the horror element to almost nothing and create some melancholy instead. It's only a first draft, so go wild with hard, firm, veiny crits.

Spoiler:

“The sand gets in everywhere,” she said, shucking off her thongs. After only a month the sun was already working hard to deepen the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, to make her forehead crease even more deeply when she frowned. “We need a hose out back.”

“I’ll bring one next week. Promise.”

She smiled and took my hand. Her skin was cold and dry, paper stretched taut over bone. “You’re a good boy. Do you have time for a cuppa? Or does your father need you back?”

“He’ll be fine,” I said, and looked over her shoulder out the kitchen window to where the waves tumbled endlessly on a beach as white as bone. A storm had come up and swallowed the sun in banks of rolling grey clouds and the ocean beyond the breakers was as grey as ash. I imagined swimming there and coming out fish-belly pale, as if the water had leached the colour from my skin. “Autumn turns nasty fast, huh?”

“If you wanted summer all year, you came to the wrong beach.” Mugs clinked as she poured the water. “See? Sand on the floor. I told you to wipe your shoes.”

“I did.”

“It creeps, doesn’t it?” She stirred in the sugar and then sagged against the counter. She pressed one hand against her forehead. I started towards her but she waved me back. “Don’t worry. It’ll pass. It always goes.”



She fell asleep at eight and I tucked her in and went to kiss her forehead but hesitated. In the thin amber light of the tiffany lamp I could see the sharp lines of her cheekbones cutting through. The floorboards echoed like stone, and I imagined I could taste the dust of ages on the air. The bedroom wasn’t a bedroom any more but a burial chamber beneath the great pyramid and my mother was King Khufu, desiccated by time.

I took the coast road home, wending along the cliffs, ocean on one side and sheer rock on the other. I caught glimpses of the waves between the tall gums. Night had turned the sea into an oil-slick and the beach itself was ice. Watching it made a lump rise into my throat and I kept my eyes on the spot between the headlights. Every few minutes I glanced at the rear-view mirror but there was never anyone following.

“Another week,” I said, and my hands tightened on the wheel. “Another week down.”

My mother’s sea-side cottage vanished around a bend and the beach with it, and I finally began to relax.



It was me that chose the beach house, not my mother. Six months after the divorce came through she called me and said, “I’m tired of the noise here. The cars never stop. You think I could paint better at the coast?”

I searched for weeks but even the cheapest properties would have swallowed her pension whole. Then, in the listings of a tiny real estate agency: one bedroom one bathroom remodelled kitchen priced to sell. We drove three hours to inspect. My mother wound her window down and stuck her head out, and her hair blew back in a silver tangle. She closed her eyes and the wind fluttered her eyelashes and I saw her suddenly as she must have been to my father; the girl who wore a baseball cap in high school to keep the paint from her hair, a girl who took to laughter as naturally as breath.

“Does Dad know you’re moving?” She didn’t reply.

The beach house was hidden down a gravel path, behind a gate, shrouded by drooping ferns. The car bounced into the driveway and my mother almost leapt out the door. “Perfect! It’s perfect!”

It was a thatched roof bungalow small enough to fit in a suburban backyard, the windows blinded by spiderwebs and the screen door hanging askew. The key didn’t fit in the lock but the door still swung open.

“This is decrepit,” I said, but my mother dragged me inside regardless.

Small bare living room, small bedroom with a water-stained carpet. The kitchen was neat and plain; white tiles, white cabinets, fat stainless steel faucets like hubcaps. “Look at that,” she said, and pulled back the curtains to show me the surf pounding at the shore. The sun refracted through the window and shot straight into the back of my skull and I threw a hand up to block the glare. “Come out,” she said. “Take your old Mum to the beach.”

The beach was cold between my toes, tickling up my ankle, sucking at the sole of my foot. Not the light dry sand of Coogee or Bondi, but perpetually sticky, like traversing jungle quick-sand. My mother didn’t seem to notice. She danced down the beach to the shoreline. “This is it! This is the place. You think I could be happy here?”

“Sure you could, Mum.” The sun was no less piercing outside and I shielded my eyes with a hand. There was something about the light reflecting off the waves that made everything seem unreal. The slow tumble and hiss of the waves was like television static and even in the midday sun the water wasn’t blue or green or even glassy clear but a dirty monochrome. The horizon was a blank line; no airplanes, no yacht sails, no gulls. Blue sky and colourless ocean. It could have been a beach ten hundred thousand years in the past, long before anything had begun to breathe or dream.

The longer I stared the more my stomach clenched. “Come on. Back inside.” But she didn’t listen, dancing in the shallows.



I called Dad on Friday. His voice was quieter than usual. “How’s work?”

“Slow and unending.”

“It won’t be forever. You’ll find something better soon. How’s your mother?”

“She’s fine. She’s painting.”

“The beach always suited her.” He coughed twice, sharp reports like a pistol in my ear. “You think I should go visit? That house probably needs some work.”

“She’s fine for now, Dad. The house is fine.” But I thought of the sweep of sand, and the way the waves coiled around her ankles, and I shuddered. “Maybe in a few months.”

“Guess you understand her better then me.” A pause. I heard papers shuffling. “It’s come back.”

The words I’d been expecting for months but hadn’t wanted to believe. “How bad?”

“Same as before. No real idea. I could have some good years left in me.”

“Should I-”

“Don’t tell her,” he said, and coughed again. I could hear the rattle in his lungs. “Don’t. Unless you think you should.”

Twenty minutes later the phone rang again. “Are you coming down this weekend? The weather’s cleared. It’s as good as it’s going to be this time of year.”

“I’ll be there, Mum. I always come.”



I arrived just before noon.

The screen door rattled when I knocked but there was no reply so I let myself in. Miles Davis crooned on his trumpet in the living room. The kitchen was empty as well, but through the window I saw her halfway down the beach, summer-print dress blowing around her skinny white legs. I waved and she waved back, and I settled into the wicker rocking chair by the stereo.

She came in with the hem of her dress soaked dark with seawater. “See, that’s the sort of weather that keeps me here. You see that sky? Not a cloud. Not even a bird. Tea or coffee?”

I followed her into the kitchen where she set the kettle to boil. “I’ll have to have it black this time, dear. Would you look at this?” She thrust the sugar-jar under my nose. “Taste that.”

I sprinkled a pinch on my tongue and then spat. “Is that sand? Why’d you-”

“I didn’t. It was just in there. Didn’t know till I put some in my tea. I found some in my socks as well.”

I rinsed my mouth under the tap but the taste of sand and salt refused to clear. “You walk on the beach. Of course there’s sand in your socks.”

“No, no. I bought new socks from the shop down the road. Didn’t even get to wear them. No matter. Could you have a look at the washing machine? I think the filter is clogged.”

“I’m not a plumber, mum. I sell fruit.” But I went to the laundry anyway and yanked the filter. Out the slit-window I could see the waves breaking on the headland. The tide came in and stole over my mother’s footprints, erasing them in slow sweeps, sucking greedily at the pits left by her bony heels.

I turned the filter over in my hands. The mesh was choked with lumps of sand and grit. Out the window the tracks had already vanished.



“I know I said this was only supposed to be a retreat, but maybe I’ll finish up here,” she said later that night.

“What do you mean?”

She blew steam from her mug of tea. “I love it. I’ve never felt so inspired to paint. You remember how many years I talked about painting again, and I never did? I couldn’t paint in that house.”

“It wasn’t Dad’s fault.”

“No,” she said. Her wicker rocking chair creaked back and forth. Outside the wind was a low moan and I could smell salt and seaweed and the strange greasy tang of fish washed up on the beach. The moon was a rotten eye. “It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Oh, it was.” She tipped her mug up and I watched the muscles of her throat work as she gulped the last of her tea. “I don’t regret it. Too old for regrets, dear.” She set her mug down. “I should call him.”

“Maybe you should,” I said, and remembered how tired my father sounded, as if every word ached in his gut. It’s come back. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Are you staying the night?”

“Only if you have the spare bed made.”

She stood unsteadily. Her legs were chicken-thin. At the door of her bedroom she looked back. “I love this place,” she said. “You sure picked it. I just wish I knew how to swim. Sometimes I look out there and wish I could just swim out past the headland. Maybe you could teach me?”

“Not like I can swim either, Mum.”

“Of course. I forgot. But still, it’s been years. You’re not still scared of the water, are you?”

“No,” I said, and it was the truth. It wasn’t the water at all. “Sleep well, yeah?”

She smiled. One hand trembled against her breast. “I always do, here.”

When I finally went to bed there was sand scattered beneath my pillow, collecting in the folds of the white cotton sheets. I brushed it out onto the floorboards and when I woke it was gone.



“I’m going into town,” I said, and she waved me off.

I took the battered mazda down the dirt track past the palms and around the long bend of the coast to where a grocery and bait store nestled in the shadow of tall gums. The man behind the counter was a bush-pig trapped in a uniform, thick black hair curling on the back of his hands. He squinted at the name on my credit card. “Your Mum lives up the way, right? By the cove. How’s she doing?”

“She’s enjoying the beach. Bit of a change for her.”

“Well, good. Some move in and give up after a few weeks, head straight back. Too quiet.” He raised one tangled eyebrow. “She alone in there?”

“Well, I’m there.”

“Good lad.” He handed back my card. “Take care of her. Shouldn’t leave a lady alone on the beach.”

“What, sharks?”

“Ha! No sharks on this coast. Well. Not for thirty years now.” His smile was almost swallowed by his bottle-brush beard. “Just take care of her. It creeps.”



“You shouldn’t have gotten so much.” She strained to lift the carton of milk, the tendons in her wrists taut. “I don’t live off tea, you know. Only when you’re around. Did you remember the hose? No? Oh well. Next time, love.”

We sat in the living room and ate dry toast. I drew the curtains to block my view of the beach. She frowned. “Don’t do that. It’s lovely out.”

“You really like it?” I pulled the curtains back. The sand pooled in ink-blot patterns, squirming as the clouds passed over, shifting from butterfly to clenched fist and back again.

“I wouldn’t live here if I didn’t like it. It’s soothing. I could watch the waves for hours. Some days I make breakfast and I go out and watch the waves while I eat. Then, bang, it’s lunchtime! You ever do that?”

“Only while driving.”

“You should watch the road.” She sighed. “I just wish the local sold proper paints. I’ve run out of turquoise. Did I show you my paintings, last time?”

“Not yet.”

“Well. Sometime. You should take some photos. Show your father.”

The toast stuck in my throat. “Are you going to call him?”

“Maybe. Maybe he should call me.”

“I don’t think he can.” I set down my plate and laced my fingers together. “I think… he asked me to tell you. Well. He asked me not to tell you.” My foot tapped out a nervous rhythm on the floorboards. “He’s not doing so well.”

“With his work?” But I saw how her shoulders stiffened, and a shadow fell over her eyes, and for a second it seemed as if she was falling away from me, being pulled into the distance, smaller and smaller until she was too tiny to see and her rocking chair sat empty and silent.

Then I blinked and my mother was back. She stood slowly, her knees grinding with rust. “Just can’t run from some things, I guess. Put the kettle on, will you? We’ll have a cup and I’ll show you what I’ve been painting.” Then she stepped out the back door onto the beach.

I filled the kettle and set it to boil and watched her through the window, her head bowed, hands behind her back, the wind catching her long white dress and tossing it out behind. She could have been a nervous bride but for the silver of her hair. She picked each step carefully, toe first, then heel. The sand slunk up around her ankles.

The kettle clicked off. I found the tea-bags, poured the water. I watched the second hand on my Seiko make three round trips and fished out the bags. I stuck a finger in the sugar jar and licked it off, just to make sure. Two spoons for me, one for her.

When I looked out the window the beach was empty and the sand had crept in over the door mat and into the grooves between the kitchen tiles. I called her name.



Later that day I searched her bedroom but there were no canvases or oils, and the beach had made its way into her dresser. I left.

ducknerd

I love the quietly tragic atmosphere you've created here; very realistic. As you said, the horror element is small, and I wonder if it shouldn't shrink further or change somehow. I like the image of sand as the son's dread, but right now I think it's too literal; great horror element, sure, but again, given where you've gone with this story the horror feels out of place. Hopefully that will clean up the ending, too, which was the only part of the story I didn't like.

NITPICKS:

ruzkin wrote:

The moon was a rotten eye.

This is very awkward spoken aloud. "The moon stared down, rotten." might work. Great image otherwise.

Then I blinked and my mother was back.

Odd to have a cliché here in a story with otherwise brilliant language. Express this idea any other way if possible.

Also, depending on what you do with the horror, the brief scene with the hairy salesman is relatively unnecessary, and the only time we see the protagonist away from the cottage or his father. You might be able to cut it.

ruzkin

Thanks man, all good advice.

OfficiousG

I like the last line, but when I read it over it seemed to clash a little with the second to last line, kind of like they were alternate versions of the ending of the same scene.

I probably would have liked this more as horror. I feel like there's this terrible genre out there called "literary fiction" that consists of nothing but characters witnessing their family members dying of illness and feeling emotions...or, in the genre's more refined form, not expressly feeling any emotions but stoically not reacting and leaving the reader to infer that they're feeling emotions.

Your style is good, but it's not so amazing that I want nothing but style when I'm reading the story. Your style is good enough that it could make a more unique plot believable.

Of course, if you'd had the sand conquer the house, you'd have to worry about comparisons with the video game Shade.

AryaLeingold

"The sand gets in everywhere,” she said, shucking off her thongs.

I still have trouble remembering that thong=sandal=flipflop. My first reading put sand in her vagoo and that's ew.

I have no grammatical corrections to offer at the moment but as a whole I feel like you need to make a choice. Either go full on horror and make the sand more persistant and invasive or cross over into the symbolic and take out the insinuations of the grotesque. Either the sand is trying to kill her or it's not.

Right now, I don't know which way to go.

Also, the part with the father could be more fleshed out. Right now I just know he's got "something bad" and it's probably killing him. And the mom is, what, insane? Alzheimer's? Everything is so vague right now there's no clear story.

ElJeffe

This story is very subtle and the mood is very eerie and I like it.

You had me all the way until the end, where the last paragraph just sort of... I don't know. It didn't work. It's like you wrote the first 95% of the story and then realized you had a dentist appointment and slammed out a couple closing sentences. I would either close it off with him calling her name (though you'd need a closing sentence or something, because dropping it after "I called her name" would be too abrupt) or flesh out the last paragraph a little more.

That last paragraph is the only one I'd say reeks of OfficiousG's "I Have No Emotions And I Must Scream" pseudo-genre. It's like, "Oh, the beach ate my mum. Guess I should be off now." I don't think real people would do that. If he's dumbstruck with horror or loss or something and is reacting with numbed emotions, illustrate that - don't just leave the reader to assume that's what you meant.

Zsetrek

Just for the purposes of public discourse, I thought I'd relay the crits I gave Ruz over MSN.

I agree with Jeffe insofar as I think this would work better played straight. I have very strong childhood memories of hearing about people buried alive in sand dunes, and the beach is a wonderful place for someone to mysteriously disappear (especially for Australians). If she vanishes and Ruz captures the panic of the son, or at least foreshadows the panic, then the sand starts working on another level - it's not just a simple old age metaphor, it comes to represent mortality. By playing it straight, the sand becomes more frightening.

I think the pacing towards the end is a little wonky, too - the son shouldn't leave the house once he arrives. There needs to be more final-stretch momentum.

ElJeffe

If played straight, I think it could go either horror or non-horror, depending on the mindset of the reader. Which I think would be very cool. The foreshadowing could go either way.

Either the sand is evil, or the mother is just sort of crazy and wanders off, maybe drowns. Either way is sort of creepy.