• Scattered Dreams

    “A scattered dream that’s like a far-off memory.
    A far-off memory that’s like a scattered dream.
    I want to line the pieces up –
    Yours and mine.”
    -KH II


    I feel heavy. Tired. Worn. Like none of this means anything. How could it? It’s all so petty. It’s all so…

    The sky looked strange that day, the sunset especially red, as though blood had leaked from it into the glowing water as it sank slowly into its depths, drowning.
    Jagged stones in the sand pinched and bit the bottoms of my feet as I crossed the beach. Ahead of me, where the sand was finer and soft, a couple argued bitterly, the only others on the beach, they leaned in as they competed for loudest yell, most perverse accusation. I stopped, a broken shell pushing into the arch of my foot and watched them for a moment. Both were red-faced. The woman had tears running from her eyes, the man’s teeth were clenched, bared in a snarl. They were ugly. Puffy eyes, bloodshot from crying, blotchy red faces, a throbbing vein bulging from a temple. Ugly.
    I turned the other way, back the way I’d come, overturning seashells as I went. The sea beside me drew itself out and I stopped again. On my other side was a sandcastle, simple and built clumsily, a dirty gull’s feather stuck out of it’s spindly top. Circling the base of the little castle were uneven rows of sea glass. Green, brown, white, and a single blue piece in a spot of honour under the feather. The wind picked up in a sudden gust that carried away the feather and a wave surged forward, foaming over the little castle. The water drew back again, leaving the castle sodden and bent. Except for the blue piece clinging to the wet sand all the sea glass had been washed away, carried into the ocean. I pulled my foot back, ready to put the twisted castle out of its misery, but the sea glass caught my eye again and I reached down and picked it out of the muddy sand. Brushing it off gently I held it up to the sun, nearly submerged now, watching the light glitter through the coloured glass.
    As I watched features appeared in the reflections of light, the shape of a face in translucent glass. Eyes, much darker than mine, a flat black, stared back at me. I dropped the glass, startled, but on the ground the face was gone. Stooping, I picked it back up, then held it to the fading light. It shone dully. I shook my head, dismissing the anomaly, and stood, stuffing the piece into my pocket.

    x x x x x


    The sun had long ago been replaced by the moon. It’s light drew the colour from my room, washing it out to muted greys and dull silver. I could see it through my open window, the shining white disk that dominated the night sky. I knelt on my bed, kicked the crumpled covers aside and leaned against the windowsill. Four stories below the street was empty in a broken town. The awning over the window below mine stank of rust and rotted leaves and the rainwater that sat in the dent in the metal. The brick building across the street was molding, its foundation was cracked, the boarded windows dirty. No one could smell the town’s rot. No one else’s nose wrinkled whenever they breathed in the streets. For everyone else the town was quaint, quiet, historic. All I could see was a dead town people were too deluded to mourn.
    In the wind the awning creaked and a few flakes of rust blew up and past my window. I sighed and fell back on my bed, staring at the bare ceiling above me with its peeling eggshell paint. Another ugly thing. I turned over onto my side but sat up abruptly when something jabbed my thigh. Digging my hand into my pocket I pulled out the blue sea glass, which I’d forgotten about entirely. I watched it warily for a few moments, turning it slowly in my fingers, but quickly dismissed what I’d seen earlier. The sun on the water had made the strange reflections; it had been a trick of the light, nothing more.
    My mind settled I lay back on my bed, tossing the piece of sea glass above me and catching it again. It spun in the air, the moon’s colourless light glancing off of it, and fell. I caught it again and tossed it back up. It didn’t spin. Instead it flew straight and on the way down caught the moon’s light in a flash where dark eyes stared out at me for an instant. I flinched and the glass hit just above the bridge of my nose, bounced off, and slipped into the space between the bed and the wall, clattering against the dusty baseboard. I sat up, rubbing my forehead. Staring into the space I saw nothing but dark. I could have left it there, I realised, could have pretended it didn’t exist, but somehow I couldn’t stand to deny it, despite its obscurity. ‘It’ was something, at least, that was not ugly.
    I reached down and my fingers immediately found the glass. Ignoring the way my hand was shaking I brought it to eye level and peered through it at the moon. The face appeared slowly, wide black eyes and a pale complexion, a translucent image over the moon. The eyes closed and I realised it was a relief not to see them. My view through the glass widened, like a camera panning away from a scene, but all I could see was darkness except for a blotch of pale colour. A girl’s face, her head bowed and eyes closed, was alone in the dark. There was a window near to her, through which moonlight threw a small oblong over her shoulder, highlighting pale hair and high cheekbones. I wanted to see more, to see something, but there was nothing visible outside the patch of moonlight. Then her eyes shot open, a dual black abyss, and she screamed.

    My own yell rang in my ears when I opened my eyes, but I only saw peeling eggshell above me. Putting a hand on my heaving chest I sat up, staring out my open window. Outside, the clouds passed slowly in the sky, skirting the sun. I could feel the heat building already. I stepped out of bed, running a hand through my hair, and crossed the room to find my school clothes before trudging downstairs.
    Minutes later I rushed back in, scrambling to find my bag, shove my keys in my pocket, and shut the window. I knelt on my bed and pulled the window shut, then heard a quiet ‘thump’ from the floor. The piece of sea glass lay there, looking dull and ordinary in the shadow of the bed, as if trying to convince me that it hadn’t had a hand in last night’s strange dreams. I scooped it up and shoved it, too, in my pocket with the keys, telling myself that it wasn’t what made my fingers tingle.

    The clock tower rose high above me, its bell booming nine times as rushed past toward the school. “Sawyer!” A voice called, and I turned.
    “Byron,” I said, watching warily as the other boy caught up. He towered over me, grinning in a way I didn’t like. I stepped back and his grin widened.
    “You’re late again,” he told me.
    “And you’re not?”
    “That’s some bad luck,” he said, ignoring me.
    I took another step back. He dropped his bag. “You know, we’ll be even more late if we don’t get going,” I said as I continued to back away, the wide stairs of the clock tower coming up behind me.
    “No, see, you’ll be late. I’ll be suspended.”
    “Why’s that?” I asked, though I knew the reason already. I also knew that I should have bolted, though I didn’t.
    “You know exactly why, you little rat. I should’ve made sure you wouldn’t talk when I saw you in the first place back then, ‘stead of waiting ‘til you’d already run to the teachers,” he shoved me, hard in the chest.
    I stumbled back a few steps, dropped my bag, then stepped forward and shoved him back. “I’m not the rat!”
    “Whatever happened to being smart, huh?” He shoved me again, “’Cause starting something with me really isn’t, y’know?” And again, a hard push to my chest. My heel hit the first step of the clock tower stairs. “’Fess up. Just tell me you’re the rat and I’ll get on to that meeting with the principal. Gotta ‘discuss my behaviour’ and all that.” Again, he shoved me, sneering, and I barely managed to steady myself against the stair, then I swung, the knuckles of my right hand connecting with his jaw.
    It was a quick recovery and then his fist found the side of my head. I fell back, a stone stair digging into the small of my back, brilliant colours exploding behind my eyes. Tugging at my school tie, he pulled me up, lifting me off the stairs slightly, and took the chance for another good punch. My forehead hit the edge of a stair when he let me go. With the taste of blood in my mouth and the staircase wobbling dangerously, I tried to scramble up them. Byron reached for me, his fingers catching in a belt loop and tearing it as he pulled me back, managing to knee me in the stomach simultaneously. Unintentionally I marvelled at how someone like him could multitask so efficiently. I rolled down the few stairs I’d managed to climb, hearing my keys jingle as they fell from my pocket. Byron stood beside me as I raised myself on my elbows and saw that my piece of sea glass had fallen from my pocket along with the keys.
    I reached for it and Byron stepped on my hand to stop me, picking it up himself. “Hey,” I choked out, standing unsteadily. He was studying it, holding it up to the sun to watch the way it sparkled. Kicking aside my keys I stepped toward him and reached for the sea glass, my heart beating strangely. No matter what I couldn’t let him see what I did when I looked through the glass. But more so I was terrified of loosing the one shred of beauty that existed in my ugly little life. As my fingers closed over the little piece and I tried to tug it away I saw Byron pull his hand back, ready to hit me again. I squeezed my eyes shut, felt nothing, and when I blinked my fingers were splayed over glass somewhere overwhelmingly dark, and Byron was gone.