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“If
you press it to your ear, you can hear the sea, go on!”
I
try. I hear
nothing. Space.
“It
doesn’t work, dad” I
thrust it back at him.
He ejects a hollow, sad
laugh.
“Keep trying,” and he kisses me and
leaves.
Mum
cries at night. After
the shouting; silence.
Then when I’m in bed, struggling to find sleep, I hear low sobs, rising
uncontrollably. Their rhythmic regularity lulls
me, like a cradle rocking.
In
the morning, I take the shell, pressing till its fat pink lips leave
an imprint on the side of my face. But all I hear is emptiness. I take a bead from a broken
necklace and drop it in.
It rattles about without conviction.
I
open my window, peer at the neat garden below. The shell slips from my
fingers, blows me one last kiss as it twirls in the air and smashes
down on the grey concrete slabs, scaring the early morning
blackbirds into flight.
I feel exhilarated. It lies in two
pieces. I am
disappointed. I wanted
infinite fragments, invisible to the human eye. The bead rolls around unsure where
to go, settling on a crack in the path.
Mum comes in, eyes bloated.
“It’s time to get up.” Her voice is
flat.
“Didn’t
you hear?” I
ask.
“Hear what, darling?”
I
shake my head, “Nothing, nothing at all.”
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