I was only there because I was sorry, although words alone couldn't atone for my actions. My feet dug into the hot sand while the wind whipped at my face. The shore reminded me I was still alive, and that there was something left to live for after the stillness fell. Although the air still smelled of salt, it no longer invigorated me like it did before, instead it filled me with dread. Everything inside the town had fallen silent and still. The sound stopped echoing, power lines stopped buzzing, and the birds stopped cawing.
All because of me.
"I'm sorry," I muttered under my breath.
They couldn't hear me where they were in their watery graves, but my voice alone could break through the stillness. Not that it mattered. To them, it was always my fault. If I had known, I could have warned them, gotten them to safety, or at least done something other than rage. Instead, I took my anger and fear and channeled it into a suggestion, one that led them to their sunken tomb. Each of my days since the stillness played out exactly the same; foraging through the empty homes for food, eating in silence, then returning to my cabin to sit and lose myself in the books I'd gathered up during my food runs. A part of me missed the routine of getting up and trudging off to school, although I missed it out of obligation, not yearning. No one there ever listened to me, nor did they ever shut up and let me think. When they finally heard me, it was all wrong and never what I intended. Instead, I’m left with guilt. Standing on the shoreline, their voices broke through the silence; a few discordant notes ringing out like an orchestra tuning up while their hum danced in my head.
With the sun beating down on my shoulders, I reached my hands out towards the waves to see if I could still feel them beneath the surface. There they were, like they have been, and where they will be until I decide what to do. A part of me longs to move on, and see what else exists beyond this town and these borders, if the stillness was isolated or had spread further. There could be something, somewhere, where my rage hadn’t triggered catastrophe. Maybe even people that wanted me around. One day a few weeks ago, I heard a truck idling down the street, breaking my isolation. The guilt of my continued existence pushed me to hide until the truck's engine faded into the distance. It was better this way of not being known and to be left alone.
This was only my third trip to the beach, the first time an exploratory mission to confirm my fears that when I let go, those dark thoughts splintered out and influenced reality. That this was my fault, and my family’s fears of who I was were true. Only the gentle crashing of the waves haunted me, materializing only when I stepped closer, like a pair of headphones had slipped over my ears. It was that first trip where I realized their fate; when I saw Mr. Willoughby, the jovial baker from down the street, floating in the water like a buoy, his bloated, blank face gazing up at the sun like an abstract horror I never wanted to see again. They were all there, floating near him, some deeper and anchored to heavy rocks, like they were waiting for me to feel through the waves for them and understand what they were driven to. I could sense them. It was actually oppressive. Their voices broke through the stillness and their minds called out to me, giving me a snapshot of those last moments before they froze in place and their lungs filled with the stinging seawater. Mr. Willoughby was overcome with grief when he jumped off the pier, with a massive rock tethered to his leg, but while it was enough to drown him, the knot tore at him until his foot dislodged, sending his corpse bobbing to the surface.
Their final moments were all the same; hearing my voice, wishing they’d all just go away.
The second expedition was out of duty. I understood they were there, tormented and scared, and needed company. At least that’s what I had wanted when I was scared, so I took my book and a blanket and read for as long as I could before I retreated to our cabin, unable to handle the pressure. Their voices were overwhelming, swelling into a cacophony of the madness that had claimed them, and my guilt for wanting to be understood and have some peace. This time I needed to act fast, before the voices overtook my will again. My hands wavered while I continued to reach out, sifting through the bodies and trying to tune out their voices until I found what I was looking for. My family were all there, together, like a cozy little unit. Mom, Dad and even Jodi.
Their voices clattered around in my mind, filling me with that same horror I didn't want to know and had avoided for so long. I couldn't help but flinch, the wind pulling my hair over my eyes and working at my grip. They were right there, in my grasp, and I didn't want to let go of them. Although they were weighted down, I still had them, anchors and all, pulling them up towards the surface, weaving their bodies through the weave of the townsfolk and their own ill-conceived ballasts. But they were emerging, the surface bubbling while the bodies pushed aside to make room for my family.
A gull circling overhead caught my attention, my hands trembling, and briefly lost my grip on the three of them. High tide was coming in and the sand, once dry and hot, was being lapped with water, making my toes dig into the wet surface. I reaffirmed my grip on the three of them, helping them pull up towards the surface, but the gull landed on the dock, feet digging into the post and gazed right through me, like I wasn't even there. A shiver jolted through me, a terse reminder of how invisible I felt before the stillness fell. The gull and I locked eyes and whatever was left of my grip was gone, the bodies released from my grasp and sinking back down towards the depths, myself hastily retreating from the beach again as the screams were no longer under control and filled my ears.
***
There was a point a few weeks into my isolation where I gave up on the idea of wearing shoes anymore. All around me was nothing but silence and numbness, and that tactile feeling of my feet touching the ground—even when walking over rocks or pavement—served as a reminder to me that I was still here, and my flame still burned. Complications arose from that, like having hard calluses that became a daily target for a pumice stone and made my food scavenging more complicated by trying to find lotions as well.
Although it was comforting to know my home was still there, containing a lifetime of memories, it sat frozen in time and more of a mausoleum to the life we once led than a place for me to continue on with my life. Dust gathered at an alarming rate and gave everything a dim hue of decay, and although I was fully capable of cleaning it off, I held back, like when I screamed for them to drown themselves, only to watch them march off to their collective doom. I was meant to be there as well. It was like I was still living, but was scared to leave any mark.
I ran out of fresh food last week, leaving me to some of my less favorite options, like canned soup. The lid on this one, chicken noodle, was easy enough to peel off, and it splashed into the pot without making a sound. My mind still wanted to hear the sound of noodles and broth slapping against the metal, or the clicking of the pilot light along with the tangy aroma, but at this point I knew it wasn't there. Instead, my mind worked from memory to fill in the blanks. The same could be said for taste, which was no longer present and made stomaching something I'd always had a distaste for easier, although still unsettling to get the textures and feeling without flavor. It was more difficult to play house like I was doing; pretending I was a few years older, venturing off on my own like I’d always dreamed of, when everything was so suffocating.
After eating, I gazed out the window towards the shore, letting the sounds and smells of the ocean permeate through me, a reminder that just a few weeks prior, this world around me was vibrant and full of life. My mind wandered back to that feeling when I was pulling my family back up towards the surface, only for the gull to stop me in my tracks. If I was going to try again, I needed to understand there was at least one seagull in the area, seemingly unaffected by the stillness and undisturbed by my presence.
My heart was pounding in my chest and it was difficult to catch my breath at the thought of going back out there, even if it was the only place that felt alive anymore. I wanted to see them again, even if it was one last time, and so I could apologize. The chances of bringing them back were low, if not zero, but I was able to feel them, hear their final moments and channel their energies, meaning I had to try. Maybe if I could see them again, look them in the eye and tell them how sorry I am, I could finally move on from this place and breach the border.
The mid-afternoon sun beat down on my back and my feet stung with each step along the pothole-ridden road, the same road I'd failed to skateboard on when I was a teenager because of how rough it was. Every time I walked down this road, I regretted my decision to not wear shoes anymore, although it was keeping me grounded and the pain reminded me of my continued existence. Still, I persisted on, knowing I'd insulated myself for long enough and these painful reminders kept me from fading away entirely, or at least jumping into the ocean with a rock tethered to my ankle like the rest.
Where the road gave way to the beach, my feet transitioned from the rocky, burning road to the gritty, hot sands. These were the same sands I derided as a child because the breakwall ruined any chance of turbulence and waves to hit this beach. My family had ignored living this close to the ocean, treating it like an afterthought, and now, outside of the blisters on my feet, the crashing of these gentle, lapping waves were my only tether to reality. None of that was lost on me.
The closer I got towards the water, the more the voices thrummed, gurgling up from beneath the surface and reminding me of the pain they all felt that pushed them this far. After my near miss the prior day, it was increasingly difficult to focus on just my family. I'd spent days focusing my energies on my family prior to my attempt, trying to tune in specifically to them and their energies while drowning out the rest. Now the circling gull was impossible to ignore. It again landed on the floating dock and gazed through me.
I swallowed hard and dug my feet into the sand, trying to focus even if each step took more of my energy. The tide was much lower, and the dock bobbed gently in the water. Unlike last time, I heard the gull, its call cracking through the perceived barrier of the stillness. The call was rough and abrasive, although after spending so much time in the stillness, it danced through the wind with lyrical grace I never before imagined a gull's call could. I glanced over at it, wanting to be sure the sound was coming from the gull and not another memory my mind was inserting. Sure enough, it was coming directly from the gull, the same gull that was staring through me like I wasn't there.
Trying to focus, I bared down and reached out towards the waters again, my fingers extended into the air but projecting into the water. Mr. Willoughby was still bouncing around the surface, and was impossible to ignore, like his body was fighting to wash ashore to tend to his garden once more. His cold, dead eyes gazed through me, much like the gull's, and the screams from his final moments looped around inside my mind, punctuated by the panic that enveloped him in those final few instants before his death. I couldn't deal with it anymore, grasping a hold of his fragile, waterlogged body and tugged at him with my mind, bristling against the floating, tethered bodies until he jerked up onto the shore.
On the shore, his cries stopped and gave me a moment of reprieve. I glanced back at the gull, whose steely gaze no longer looked through me, but instead met with my own, almost sending me crashing to the ground. We locked eyes, and it subvocalized its call again, long enough to distract me from what was unfolding on the beach. Mr. Willoughby's body shuddered and his hand twitched. With an uneasy motion, his hand reached up and grasped onto the sand, pulling himself forward. The other hand followed, dragging his body and leaving a wet streak on the beach. His missing foot was a new hindrance for him, myself watching while he attempted to pick himself up, but realized there was no way to do so without that foot. Finally, he glanced up at me, those same glassy eyes blinking back to life, and shook his head.
"Good day to you," he said, an echo of his daily greeting when I walked by his garden on the way to school when I was younger.
"Good morning, Mr. Willoughby," I replied, finishing our familiar loop.
He continued to drag himself forward, reaching the road where the sound of his body scraping against the concrete made me shudder. The bird remained on its perch, able to see me, but was silent, as if it were studying me. I shook off that feeling and reached out again for the three of them, trying to regain that same sense of focus I had the day prior, where I felt only for my family and responded to their cries. They were together this time, not separate like they were before I grabbed hold of them, which made it easier to focus on their three voices. With them in my grasp, I pulled on them like a puppet master, tugging on invisible strings, dragging them back towards the surface once again.
The ocean continued its gentle rising and falling while my family's bodies bubbled up to the surface, suspended limp in mid-air by their shoulders, their voices from their final moments playing in an unnerving loop. I pulled them in closer towards the beach, knowing what I was doing would only hurt me in the long run, and only complicate my now-simple life. The bird cried out, trying to break my concentration or warn me, but it was too late. I was steadfast in my conviction. I needed to look them in the eye and tell them the truth; to tell them I didn't know what I was doing, and that I was sorry. If I had a chance to do it over again, I'd control my temper. I'd listen to them and be the good boy they always wanted me to be, but couldn't live up to. Not the failure who never left home, or was too afraid of the world and the way people looked at me whenever I got too comfortable.
With a thud, their bodies tumbled to the sands. My chest heaved, and I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by the chorus of voices calling to me from the ocean. Just like they called to me when the stillness fell, just like they looked at me like it was my fault. I pushed them away, far away, as far away as I could, unaware of my influence or power. Seeing my family in a heap on the beach tore me apart, tears flowing from my eyes and dripping down into the sands beneath. I sobbed and screamed out, my voice carrying over the waves while the bird continued its song.
Movement came from the beach, and I knew it would be any moment now. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't face them. Not after everything that had happened. Not after I let everyone down in my quest to be left alone. It wasn't my fault, but then why was I so sorry about it? Why did I feel so guilty? All I wanted was for them to reach out and embrace me, to tell me everything would be okay and they loved me. Instead, they looked at me with horror and disgust. I wasn't the son they raised. This wasn't how they wanted me to turn out. I was a monster.
"I'm sorry," I sobbed into the sand, collapsing before them. "I'm so sorry."
My mother's groan came through first, me looking up through tear-filled eyes to see her shifting and checking on my father and sister. They grumbled and tugged at their tethers, then looked back at me in confusion. The bird's song only grew louder, and it took everything in my power to not vomit up that soup I'd eaten earlier. Her eyes were just as dead as they were before, but now they were locked on me. That look, though, was all I needed to know.
In her eyes was no regret or sorrow. There was no elation to see my face again. Instead, it was one of pity. Her tongue clacked and head tilted, shaking back and forth while the bird’s song drowned out everything around me. My father’s face was filled with confusion, refusing to lock eyes with me, while Jodi was furious. All the words I’d practiced in my head before this moment had disappeared, although facing down my family and their regret, I knew those words would never be adequate enough.
I screamed, pounding my fists into the sand, and turned away from them. Their silence was deafening amid the crashing of the waves, the chorus of the damned and the bird all vying for my attention. They were there, right in front of me, and this moment was the one I was holding on for. This was supposed to be that catharsis and understanding. They were supposed to rush to my side, where we’d cry and hug and they’d tell me it would be alright.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured again.
My mother’s sobs only intensified, my father comforting her while Jodi crossed her arms and shook her head.
“Say something.” I was pleading.
The gull called again. I turned, and we locked eyes like our energies were bound together by some invisible fateful tether. A tether not unlike those that dragged the rest of them to the ocean floor. Inside that trance, the sounds flattened and my tears dried up. There would not be absolution. Not here, not in the stillness.