It was strange, but true. That things I could hear and feel did not exist, but were real somewhere. Things that were unclear to others made sense to myself. And things that did not make sense to me, made sense to every one else.

The Artist had buried things in the sand.

‘Hide them from myself’, he had said, ‘not from others’. They were always mindless things. Marbles, papers, pencils. Worth so much, yet so little. I came across a marble, red like the sea in endwinter. ‘My favorite’, the Artist said quietly. He was never really an Artist.

Just a name I called him.

My Mother was never really my Mother, just a name I called her. She was the only one who took me in. She walked to the beach, like all the other Mothers. Wearing her scarf around her head, so the endless wind would not bruise her fair face.

To Dig

‘Dig in the sand for buried treasure’, said my Aunt. Her decrepit teeth smiling wickedly. She was never my Aunt, just a name I called her. All the Mothers dug up were sold to the Bike Men. Sold for food and clothes that the Bike Men had.

Sold for life

I visited the beach frequently. I spoke with the ocean and the wind. Their words had no meaning. Yet they were more comforting than anything I had ever heard. The creatures of the sea sang to my heart. The creatures of air recited poetry to my soul. Even the rigid sand gave me reassurance. Every thing was constant.

Reliable.

The sea turned a dark ruby red as the sun burned dimmer and the wars across the ocean grew fierce once more. The wars had always been there. I never knew why. I could feel the spirits of past people in the ocean. They wept soundlessly and the ocean soaked in their pain.

So did I.

The Mothers came home earlier because of the chill that lingered in the air. ‘Not right’, my Mother had said, ‘too early’. The Artist remained steady, always there, yet always not. Digging. ‘Skin twice as thick as ours’, said my Aunt, ‘can’t feel a thing’.

Not one thing

I came to the Artist the next day. He was digging a hole for feathers. ‘Because I can’t fly’, he said, ‘I have no use of them’. I picked one up, the icy wind made my fingers prickle. The smooth feather was not of the color brown. Which was of the chickens who wandered near our home. It was pure white. A color I had never seen before. I looked up to ask.

But he was gone.

The Mothers did not go out the next day. They stayed in their small homes, buried in their beds of silk and cotton. My Mother grumbled, she wanted to leave the small confines. And so she did. To the beach.

She never came home.

I went out as soon as I was able. The wind cried into my clothes. It was mourning a death. The sea swept thick waves of tears. Washing the liquid ice onto my feet. The water had something else, but I could not say. I could never say. ‘It is too thick’, said the Artist. He was behind me.

‘I know’, I said.

My Aunt cried for days, ‘So young’, she said, ‘far too young to leave us’. I had no Mother now to gather things by the sea. So I had to leave to the beach myself. The sand was hard and resisting. Its cold particles pierced my fingers and I could feel its detestation at my touch.

It hurt me.

I could find no trinkets. The Bike Men stared at my empty hands with confused looks. I could find nothing, so I could have no food. My skin began sinking onto my bones. As if it was too tired to go on any longer. My body began to shrink and so did my Aunt’s. We both grew too weak to dig.

We were dieing.

It was strange to die. At first it was painful. My stomach’s teeth seemed to attack my insides relentlessly. My eyes began to lose their touch and the world disappeared around me. The day my Aunt went away, was the day I truly died. It was after that I felt no pain at all.

Nothing at all

I had found my way to the beach. The water would not speak to me and the wind had tired and gone elsewhere. I screamed at the invisibleness before me. I knew where I was, but my body and mind seemed to be separate. My mind was in the ocean. Futility listening to its absent whispers. My body was in the sand. Deteriorating into nothingness.

I was alone.

‘You have come’, I could not turn to see the Artist, my body was gone. I wanted to run to him and feel his soft heart beating against my cold one. I wanted to feel. ‘Go to the where you belong, you have no place here now’. I should have known what he meant, but I refused to think such things.

I discarded such thoughts.

The ocean was mute and the wind was hushed. Even the sand beneath my feet was no longer resisting me. It was gone. All the things in my life had abandoned me and even the Artist seemed to banish me.

My constant life was gone.

‘Dig!’ he ordered harshly. His voice cut through me, but I was suddenly on the ground. Pawing through the sand. The beach felt like dust between my nonexistent finger tips. It spread away from me. Even though I was not truly touching it. And I soon found what I was supposed to find.

Feathers.

Pure white. A color I had seen only once before. I remember the Artist’s words. ‘Because I can’t fly. I have no use of them’. I was terrified. ‘Fly’, he breathed, ‘Fly to a place where such silly things as hunger and violence are not present. Fly far and forever, listen to the wind. It will guide you,’

Save you.

The feathers flew from my hands and encircled me. I had never cried before in my life. I wished so much that I had. Because I could no longer. The Artist was in front of me, his warm hands held my face. He kissed me on the forehead. ‘Good bye, precious soul. May our lives intertwine once again.’

I was gone.