The Tide

The Tide

The sea sweeps back and forth across the coast, a mirror of the sky. Today it is steel gunmetal grey, unforgiving and cheerless. Clouds are pregnant with rain that refuses to fall, smothering the happiness and dimming the light. The gritty sand sucks and drains as the water pulls away like a restless lover. It is mid-winter and the wind that whistles across the weathered faces of the cliffs; is blistering and bitter. Hands and cheeks turn red and raw in moments and people scuttle like ants across the boulevards. It is low tide and the soggy, glutinous mass which is normally concealed beneath the waves, lies like a stinking, decomposing corpse. The surface moves as life pulses beneath and crabs dart quickly, stealthily and hurriedly. There is a feature in the sand, never seen before. Three curled fingers reach, seemingly from nowhere. They are unsighted and sightless. The fingerprints are wrinkled, almost indistinguishable and the knuckles are concealed beneath the sand.

“Shandy! Back!” he calls to the Labrador, sniffing at the find. The man halts, the hood on his blue waterproof preventing his brown hair from flailing like angry snakes. His wellington boots stick and sink in the gunk. He cannot see what she has found but a creeping feeling is edging its way up his spinal column. He feels sick suddenly as it registers in his brain what the sticks in the sand are. The fingers are bloodied and he can only see one nail upon the three extended fingers. He drops the walking post he is holding, his hands both going to his lips in shock and to hold back the vomit.
“Shandy,” he calls again, his voice has lost its strong timbre tones and he is left, a shell of fear and nausea. He reaches for his pocket where his phone is normally kept. It is empty and an image flashes in his mind, his phone sits upon the kitchen side, diligently awaiting his return. He swears to the roar of the ocean as it begins its return journey to the shore, concealing what should be hidden. He makes a decision, swiftly; he will return home and call the police. It will be in their hands then. But suddenly he drops to his knees. What if the person is alive? What if they are trying to dig their way out? He cannot leave. He glances back; the sea is approaching in rolling waves and tenuous bellows. He could be trapped here trying to commence a fruitless rescue mission. He studies the sky, the sun is firmly stashed away for the day and he is left with rain and howling wind. The grey clouds gaze back at him, answerless and unhelpful.

He is still upon his knees, is it his imagination or are the knuckles now exposed? He wipes his forehead in stress. His wife always nags at him when he performs this gesture of humanity. Shandy is looking at him, her big brown eyes glance from his face to the digits.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he scolds, shaking his hand and wiping his head again. He feels agitated and uptight. The waves are almost at his back now. He hasn’t long before the tide devours him too. But, he cannot leave. He reaches forward and begins pushing at the sand. It is unmoving, filling the hole before he even has chance to clear it. It is hopeless. Surely the person beneath is dead. There is nothing he can do.
And yet, a feeling of hope pesters him. His own fingers are beginning numb with cold and the water is lapping about his ankles. He should have returned home, should have called the police and left them to this fool’s errand. He digs more frantically, the wet sand flying in lumps about his face, sticking to his hair and eyelashes. The fingers twitch and his heart jolts. He continues digging. The water fills the hole he has made about buried hand. He makes a brash decision, knowing in his gut that the person is truly dead. He grips the hand in his and pulls. His teeth are gritted in exertion, sweat trickles down his back and under his arms. His hair sticks to him in clumps. It is useless. He lets go, moves to leave.

The hand won’t let go. The white, bony, chilled fingers grip his and he is trapped. He reaches his other hand down to use the ground as leverage but it too becomes stuck, seized by the cement-like sand. He is starting to panic now, his heart is no longer lurching, it races and thuds painfully against his chest in fear. Shandy cannot help her animal instincts. She flees. Her legs propelling her away from the frenzied scene before her, the water kicking up in the air. He is alone with naught but the water spilling and swirling at his waist, the salty water rising higher and the dead hand gripping his as if in a tug of war. Surely someone would see him sat in the waves; surely they would come and caution him or better yet, see if he was in trouble. But as he scanned the horizon, he could see no one. Nothing moved about him but for the waves which had reached his solar plexus. He is desperately cold now. The wind still howled and the rain began falling harder. His fingers are numb, dead, like the hand he clutches. He can only wait now. It is a relief when the water reaches his face and the wave’s crash upon his head. A fool’s errand. He is longer aware of his body or even if the hand underneath the sand still holds his. He breathes deeply, water cascades into his lungs and he joins the body beneath the breakers.

The next day, the sun seemingly fails to rise once more. The sky is heavy and laden with rain. The sea is white capped, the waves ferocious in their onslaught of the coast. Three fingertips emerge from the sand, an unclaimed victim of the sea, nameless but ever present.