I read an article in the newspaper: Two bodies washed up on Primrose Beach yesterday.
This beach is a twenty-minute drive from where I live, so I figured that I would go there and see what the setup was. I drove through the rain, feeling an anxiousness in my belly at what I might see.
I expected upon my arrival to be turned away, or for the road to be blocked off. But I was staggered to see that nobody was there at all. Not a single officer, no cars. The beach itself was covered in people.
I didn’t know whether it was right for me to start questioning people as to whether they’d seen the news yesterday, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. I walked out to the water, with the image of the article on my phone, and found the exact place in the image where the bodies had been found. There was a distinctive grey boulder about fifty yards behind in the image, so I was able to get the precise location in a little bit of time.
Standing by the water, as it gushed over my feet, I could see the remnants of their bodies outlined in the sand.
A little girl came over to me and said, “I was just building a sandcastle there and it’s gone now.”
I didn’t know what to tell her, so I left, frightened that she was building her work of art exactly where the article stated that two bodies had been washed up.
Just as I was doing so, one of the lifeguards stopped by me and said, “Is anything wrong, sir?”
I said, “Has anything strange happened here recently?”
He said, “Yes, in fact yesterday.”
He told me what I had seen in the article, and that he had seen me standing over the place where the bodies had been found. I asked him how everyone was so indifferent and able to go about their day knowing that two bodies had washed up here the day before.
He said, “You can’t let these things get the better of you. We’ve got a strong community here, things continue to live on even after trauma.”
I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me, but I began to feel uncomfortable in my chest - the way he was talking to me suggested that I was missing something.
*
On my way to work, a drain had overflooded and water was spilling out into the road. The rain clattered against my windshield. I opened my window and took a long inhalation of the wonderful wet air.
I told my boss about the beach, and he expressed my exact thoughts, which made mine feel at least somewhat justified. “I certainly wouldn’t have gone there myself though,” he confirmed. I told him that I was a sucker for the news, that I knew it wasn’t good for me, but I was a pathetic little hound for it.
For the rest of the day I had relative comfort. Until the end of work, anyway.
Driving home, I put my nose out the window at a set of traffic lights and breathed in deep. But this time there was nothing refreshing about that rain. It was salty and bitter, and it seemed to stir the trees into distress. Looking up, I saw that the sky was a dull blue colour, the very same shade that the water had been, those heavy waves unfolding in unison, screeching to end those sandcastles. I closed the window and tried to not give it any thought.
*
I would not return to that beach. My curiosity of the people there would not outdo the fact that I felt strange in even considering it, since I could not view the place in any other light than death. Perhaps I was too sentimental, perhaps I needed to harden.
The indifference of those souls, I could recall their faces, clear and smiling, enjoying the weather, in their bikinis and shorts, parading around without a care. And there I was, mulling like a spoilt puppy, sensing that the blood still lived under those grains of sand.
I would not become bitter at their ability to not care about something so tragic. Live on.
*
Then a leaflet came through my letterbox. The bright colours, the pictures of children, the amusement arcades and rides all showcased on the front. The electric font. COME AND CELEBRATE AT THE FIESTA THIS WEEKEND. And where else would it be other than…
Naturally, I chucked it in the bin, but the next morning the same one came through my letterbox.
On the third day I sat waiting and as soon as it was delivered, I told the postman not to pop it through my front door ever again. I tell you, I’ve never felt as feverish as those terrible mornings, my head throbbing to the point of nausea, those treacherous waves beneath my skin.
*
I’m slowly being driven to madness by this. Neighbours are telling me all about the fiesta. They’re telling me not to dwell on the news. They’re saying it’s “commendable” of their community and that I’m “too sensitive”. Well, perhaps I ought to rebel. Show these people that death is nothing to be joked about. No, I am not the crazy one here. I’m not.
*
It’s easy, what I’m going to do at this fiesta tomorrow. I’ll walk through the beach, all the indifferent people, smiling away, playing their games, and I’ll find my place in the water, near enough to where those two bodies washed up. I’ll get on my back and just wait there, allowing the water to crash over me. Then I’ll place the bag over my head. I’ll feel the air swallowing me up, the bag breathing more than myself, the numbing of the waves, the pebbles against my feet, the darkening clouds, and I’ll at least be able to remove myself from the atrocities of this world. I have become miserable, I have set upon myself to complain about others, and my death must be made public. They’ll enjoy their fiesta without me, the way they’d have wanted, and I’ll no longer have to put up with those waves crashing against the foot of my bed while I try to sleep.