Note: Only the prologue of this story is written in lowercase. The rest of the novel abides by the rules of English grammar. Or at least I hope it does.
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p r o l o g u e
it is, after all, just a beach.
today there’s a lot of wind. it’s not a gentle breeze. it’s a wind, like a child ripping a toy from your fingers. it’s a gust.
the sand between my toes feels like gram flour, the kind my mother used to use in the kitchen all the time. i don’t know why sand inspires people – i think i’ve seen countless ‘footprints in the sand’ posters all over the walls in doctors’ waiting rooms, enough quotes about how our life is like an infinite beach with infinite grains of sand – but it’s just fucking sand. it’s rocks, broken down and beaten to pulp by the water and the wind, dying a slow death, gathered on the ground, it’s geological, it’s dirt. it’s tiny rocky bits.
it’s just a goddamn beach.
yet here i am.
it’s the water i’m here for. it’s the water with which i have a purpose, with which i need to strike a deal. it’s the water which is calling me now, waving at me.
mikaela would have been proud of that pun. she painted my toenails devil red last night, i wonder if that colour is going to corrode with the sea water. by the time they find me it will probably be gone. if they find me. if i even leave.
i’ve tied up my hair but it’s not obeying me, half of it is around my face now. nothing ever listens to me. now as i walk towards the sea all i can think is that i want it to have its way with me. i’m not going to fight it. i’ve never fought anything. why should i start now?
what am i feeling?
the horizon is grey, cold. it’s all i ever see, a grey horizon.
broken shells – beaten till they’re a part of the sand. is that what i’m becoming? succumbing to atrophy in the cemetery of the world?
why am i doing this?
it feels like the sea is welcoming me. my steps become harder to take as the water sloshes around my ankles. it’s barely six in the morning but the water’s warm. it’s grey, but a warm kind of grey. it doesn’t care about what’s going to happen to me. it’s pulling me in casually behind it. the sun is rising slowly, tickling the tops of the waves, the foam giggles at it and rolls around in glee. i’m walking right through it all.
i’m not feeling anything. i’m not feeling scared, even when the water is now till my knees, the edge of my nightgown soaked. i’m not feeling happy, happy that i have only a little while to go. i’m not feeling nervous, because i don’t know what’s coming. i feel nothing. it’s a blank emptiness, not even cold and stark like new canvas, just empty. more like a canvas from which a painting has been scrubbed - worn, tired. it’s nothing.
for all i know, i might already be dead.
nevertheless, i’m still walking. i seem to be unable to stop. one step after the other. the devil red is definitely getting chipped off.
sea water seeps into my underwear. it feels gross but i don’t give a shit. my hands are limp, dragging behind me. they don’t care anymore. they don’t know what to do. i have no use for them.
a wave lifts me up, the crest pulling me upwards and setting me gently back down on the sand. i’m still not fully wet. i turn back and it’s broken into foam, frolicking prettily onto the shore – which is deserted. there’s nobody here.
