I'm not even going to bother to apologise for not posting in MONTHS (It has actually been
months (plural) now. Woah. I'm really terrible at this.). I have perfectly valid excuses, but I think they'd just waste time and energy.
Anyway, here's a story for you lovely people. I wrote it for my GCSE coursework, and it hasn't been edited since - so beware! There are probably terrible grammatical errors! Proceed with caution...
My life was normal, until
everything changed.
I had to get out. It was
suffocating in there. My too small box house was filled with air stale with old
arguments tossed about over breakfast, lunch, dinner, anytime really. Caution
made the air heavy; no one wanted to start an argument, though they always
seemed to happen. Work, school, money, anything could easily start a dispute,
though it took a lot more to end it. Today was no different. Mum and Jack, my older
brother, were arguing pointlessly about carrots that someone was supposed to
get but didn’t, even though they weren’t needed anymore. Arguments always made
me tense. Once a fight had begun the whole room seemed involved and trapped
within the useless bickering. I tried to get out early this time, just as the
tension began and the full on shouting commenced with mistakes from years ago
being thrown in because they bore some apparent relevance to the present
situation. I walked out of the kitchen, just about hearing my mother spit a
cruel comment at my brother that signalled the beginning of the fight, letting
the door swing shut behind me. I grabbed my coat off of the table by the front
door and walked out.
The
January wind was harsh and freezing, whipping against my face and making my cheeks
flush a dull pink. The air smelt so strongly of sea salt, blown from the beach,
that I could almost taste it. I pulled my coat closer to me as I shuddered,
another burst of chilled wind, blowing in my direction. When I got there, the
beach was dull. Heavy storm clouds were hanging sadly above the raging grey
sea, as though even they were thinking that it was too dull to be there. It was
the sort of day that you would ask, ‘Who died?’. Now, one of the only smells
that filled the air was rotting seaweed, which indicated that I was nearing the
sea, as it was grouped in tall piles dotted around the mixture of sand and
pebble that called itself a ‘beach’.
I
had been going to the beach ever since I was little seeing as it was only a
couple of minutes walk from the house. It was calm and relaxing when the sea
was tame, though when it raged and roared like a crazed lion it helped surface
buried emotions that I needed to get off my chest. Coming to the edge of the
land and the beginning of the vast mystery which was the sea made it easier to
think. It helped me clear my head.
The
beach was the same as always at this time of year. Dull. Everything looked grey
and washed-out, and there were no tourists lying about on the beach. The air
was cold and chilling so no one bothered to come to the sea much in the early
months of the year, which made it a perfect place to calm down and concentrate
without being disturbed. Although, when I neared the sandy stretch of ground I
realised there was something different today. There was someone there. The
figure was standing in the middle of the beach looking outwards at the few
brave fishermen afloat at sea. I shuddered when I looked at the person; they
must have been frozen as the ice wind lashed at them in their exposed place. They
only had a t-shirt and jeans on that I could just make out at this distance
spot. I carried on walking towards the shore, never taking my eyes off the
person. It seemed strange that they would come to the sea at this time of year,
though maybe they were the same as me and found that the beach was a good spot
to clear your mind. Whatever they were here for, it certainly came as a
surprise to me.
I stopped,
about five or so metres away from the person, near the shoreline. From this
distance I could see it was boy about my age. The wind blew again and whipped
the boy’s t-shirt around him. I stifled a gasp as my eyes widened. Why was he
so thin? He wasn’t petite or small, but had an unhealthy thinness. He had his arms pulled close and was slightly hunched
over but he didn’t seem to be shivering or even feeling the coldness of the day. I stared at him. He was so thin that you could see every tendon, every bone, every joint, trying to poke its
way through the paper thin skin, which was so pale that you could see every
vein as the brightest blue, contrasting against the dull lifeless blue of his
eyes that were glued looking forward. His dull mousy hair was covered in sand
somehow and his tattered, washed-out t-shirt and jeans looked like they
wouldn’t shield against anything, let alone the freezing seashore winter. His
whole body seemed washed-out, like everything had been drained from him, life,
love, knowledge. I looked forward, staring at the boats but keeping him on my
mind. I could see he move slightly out of the corner of my eye. I turned so I
could see him clearly. And he was staring straight at me.
I looked away
quickly, looking down at my feet. I could feel his gaze still on me. It stayed
like that for a few minutes; me looking down and him boring into my head. I had
a sudden thought that maybe he was just staring at me to try and make me
understand what it felt like when I did it to him. I wanted to apologise but I
couldn’t raise my head. I closed my eyes, and then raised my head slowly. I
gradually opened my eyes to see his lifeless ones looking straight back. I was
stunned for a second by how intriguing he was, and then shook myself free of
that emotion. Just as I opened my mouth to speak he turned and started walking
away. I followed him, confused; why was he walking away?
“Hey! Look,
I’m sorry I was staring at you. I was just surprised, you know, to see someone
down at the beach, not many people come down here at this time of year. So, I'm sorry,” I called to him,
trying to keep up. For his build he was surprisingly quick. He was silent and
just kept moving towards a cluster of trees off to the left side of the beach.
“Hey!” I called again but got no response. He rounded the trees just ahead. I
rushed after him but as a walked around the corner I stopped dead in my tracks.
He’d gone. He’d just completely gone. First he was there, then he'd disappeared.
Gone.
I looked
around, glancing back and forth. Where had he gone? He couldn’t have just
disappeared, but the trees where thin enough to see through to the sand on the
other side. I walked back to the shore. There was no one there. Where had he
gone?
I
didn’t go back again for a while. But all that time, I could never get him out
of my head. His almost nostalgic look
played on my mind. I thought of him constantly, at home, through my lessons,
everywhere. I couldn’t shake him from my mind no matter how hard I tried. Who
was he? Why was he so thin? And mainly, how had he disappeared so quickly? I
thought that maybe he was a traveller, though something wasn’t right. As I thought
over it, I realised he was like a ghost; he made no sound, moved swiftly and
disappeared without a trace. This jolted my mind into remembering the story of
a boy a few years ago. He had gone surfing one summer with his friend but he
hadn’t returned; his body never turned up. Could it be…? I shook the idea from
my head. That boy was gone, long gone. And so would be his spirit, if you even
believed in that thing. But the more I thought of it, the more I realised things which made the boy seem increasingly alien; especially his eyes. No one
had eyes which were that dead, no one.
The days
passed and I still thought of him. Still thought of him weak, and, what looked
like, almost dying. I hadn’t gone back since, as I didn’t want to see him again. But I found him intriguingly and disturbingly beautiful, which made no sense at all as
I was scared, but longing, to see him. I was confused every time I thought of
him.
I would end up
thinking about the skeleton boy when I was escaping, or trying to escape, an
argument. The arguments seemed to be getting worse and worse. They seemed more
pointless than ever too. And at that point in time, by the end of the dispute you couldn’t even remember what started it in the first place. Most of the
time, though, it was small insignificant actions, like leaving the tap dripping
or leaving a pen without a lid on. Little things, that would have been over
looked before, ended up being the main source of an argument.
I think it was
a Wednesday or a Thursday – about halfway through a week – when I saw him
again. It was midway through a fight when it dawned on me. The only ever time –
ever – that I had felt calm and had the clearest mind was when I was with the
skeleton boy at the beach. And with that thought I got up and left with a new
found burst of bravery. My Mum and Jack didn’t even notice when I went, too
busy involved in their own little worlds. When I got to the beach he was there.
I went and stood near him straight away, though I didn’t look at him, my new
found bravery wavering. When I got the courage to look I found him with his
eyes closed tight and body even thinner than before. He wore the same tattered
t-shirt and jeans, covered in sand. He had the same mousy hair, equally
covered. Though he was different somehow, weaker, more fragile. It was obvious
to the eye the change in his body, but it seemed to go deeper than that.
His eyes
suddenly shot open, which made me jump back since I wasn’t expecting anything
that quick to come from something so weak-looking. He looked at me again, long
and hard, then turned and left. He headed for the trees again, going the exact
same pace as before. How could he do that?
He looked so fragile and weak on the outside though he seemed so
powerful and strong-willed on the inside. I rushed to keep up with him.
“Hey? Can you
slow down for a second? I want to talk to you,” I asked speed-walking a few
steps behind him. If anything, he just sped up, which in his state seemed
impossible. I longed to talk to him, to ask him all the questions that were
bubbling over in my mind, expanding by the second into such a great mass that I
thought my head might burst open. “Hey! Please! I just want to talk,” I tried
again, but no answer. I could feel an aching in my chest. I couldn’t believe
it. I was physically aching for him
to answer me. I was shocked, but I kept walking. He sped up suddenly, speeding
around the trees just up ahead of us. “No…” I muttered to myself, following. I
stopped suddenly again. He was gone. Again. I couldn’t believe it. I sank into
the sand defeated.
There was no
way I could catch him, but I came back every day for at least a month just
trying. I found myself spending more and more time at the beach just to be with
him. I didn’t go home after school, saying I had a club - though Mum didn’t
take much notice, not that I expected her to – but instead went and stood by him.
There was never any noise apart from the birds and the sea. Never any smell but
the rotting seaweed and the occasional greasy waft of the fish and chips on
wheels that came once a week. And never any sight but those hollow pale blue
eyes. Whenever I went home and the arguments started I would bail out,
disappearing to the beach where we would stand then he would disappear, time
and time again.
I noticed
every time I went that he was getting thinner. He was thinner than anything I
had ever seen before. He was looking like his name and gave justice to it now. Skeleton Boy. Before it had just been a
name to call him, but now he actually looked like a skeleton. Thin limbs that
looked as breakable as a twig. Sunken in face with those hollow lifeless eyes.
Even his expression looked dead; it was a strange cross between not caring if
he was dead or not and silently screaming inside about the pain which he seemed
to be going through. It was haunting to say the least, but I could never pull
myself away from his eyes. And I always made myself go back there, everyday. I
visited him and we would just stand there, looking out to the horizon, watching
boats which passed far off in the hazy distance, never doing anything but being
alive. It was strangely peaceful.
A couple of
weeks after I had begun visiting him, I went to the beach one afternoon and he
had disappeared. He’d gone. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know anything. I looked
around, to make sure that he hadn’t just moved to the edge of the shrubbery
near the trees. But nothing. I waded into the water not noticing that I was
getting my school tights and skirt soaked. I had to make sure he hadn’t got
himself caught in a high tide and been pulled into the reef. I searched and
searched. Nothing. I pulled myself out of the water, tossing my drenched shoes,
which I had forgotten to take off, aside. I pulled my tights off too. They
stuck like jelly fish to my skin as I yanked them off. I flung them aside too.
I continued searching, and then looked back at my tights, chucked in a heap. My
eyes widened, realising what they looked like, and I ran to a pile of seaweed at the beach edge. He could be hidden
behind them. He wasn’t at the first mound of seaweed, nor the second. I
searched each heap individually, frantically pulling the wet weeds apart,
getting my hands salty and sticky. He wasn’t there either. I rushed back and
forth. I ran through the undergrowth and trees. He wasn’t there. I walked back
to the beach quietly. I looked out at the horizon. Everything was the same, yet
everything was so, so different. I sunk down to the sand and looked at the empty place beside me where I was so used to
seeing him. Where had he gone? There wasn’t even any evidence to prove he was
ever here. I stared down at the sand in front of me, holding my head in my
hands. I didn’t know why it had happened or how it had happened, but he’d gone.
I still
thought of him, all the time, worrying. I went back every day. I stayed for a
while, hoping to see him. Hoping that one day I would go and he would be there.
No explanation, but it would be just like he hadn’t gone. Everyday I would stand there,
staring out into the horizon, just like we used to, and would search every inch
of the beach, just to see if he had appeared in a new place, a new
place to watch the horizon, and a new place to just be alive. But he was never
anywhere. So I would return home, to the dull home life, to the arguments, to
the covering of the ears and the shutting tight of the eyes to try and get
away. I worried about him continuously. He was always on my mind. I
frequently thought in lessons, that if I went then that he would be there, but
if I went any later, then he would have gone. Even when I did manage to get
myself out of school early, he was never there, and deep down I knew he wasn’t
ever going to be.
It was the day
that my brother was driving me to school. On this certain day, the rain was
slashing down as hard as a million hammers. My brother decided out of the blue
that he was going to drive me to school, claiming to need driving experience in
weather conditions like those, as he had just passed his driving test a week
earlier. We pulled on our coats and grabbed our umbrellas. When we got outside,
the rain hit us at full pelt, pounding on our umbrellas, which were held up
right in front of us to protect our faces. We hurried to the car, slamming our
doors behind us quickly, tossing the soaking umbrellas onto the back seat and
shaking the rain off of us.
“How’ve you
been lately, then?” Jack started, as he pulled out of the driveway.
“Alright, same
as usual really,” I replied, watching the people walking getting drenched as we
drove by and splashed puddles over them.
“Been up to
much?” He turned a corner.
“Not really,
apart from the club after school.”
“Oh yeah,
right, ’course.” He wasn’t really paying much attention to me or the road. Just
making conversation because otherwise it felt so empty between us compared to
the constant argument between him and Mum.
He switched on
the radio and turned the volume on high, his hands tapping along to the music.
He turned another corner. He started nodding his head to the music, swaying his
head from side to side, his eyes slowly closing.
It all
happened so quickly. Jack’s eyes shut for only a second. And in that second a
car pulled out in front of us. I screamed his name. His eyes shot open. His
foot crashed down on the brakes. But the reaction wasn’t quick enough and the
road was too slippery. We skidded, crashing into the other car. The sound of
scraping and crunching metal was deafening. Though I heard the sound of my brother’s air bag blowing up, and I felt my body begin to be crushed. Then I saw my seatbelt
unlatching and releasing me. My senses became as sharpest they had ever been when I crashed through the windscreen, my body whacking against the
dashboard. I landed with my torso on the bonnet and my legs twisted inside the
car. Rain pounded down on me, making me completely sodden. I opened my eyes
slowly. I had a hazy view. I couldn’t move, I could only blink. I looked back
at Jack. I could only see part of his face behind the air bag. His eyes were
closed and blood was pouring down from a deep cut on the side of his head. I
couldn’t see the other driver, but I could hear shouting and car doors
slamming. The number 999 was tossed about in the panic a lot. And then
everything went silent.
I looked at
the corner of the road opposite to the commotion. It was empty, apart from a
boy leaning up against the lamppost. He no longer had dull mousy hair, but
healthy blonde locks. He didn’t have dull lifeless blue eyes, but deep vibrant
blue eyes that seemed to twinkle, knowingly. He didn’t have white paper thin
skin, but strong slightly tanned skin, which glowed in the dull grey
surroundings. He no longer wore a tattered and washed-out t-shirt and jeans,
but a fashionable outfit that looked so new that it could have just come off of
the shelves. And he wasn’t frighteningly thin anymore. He was healthy with a
strong build, just like any teenage boy. And he was smiling at me. In my mind I
was smiling back. And then he nodded. And I understood. At that moment I
understood everything. He was never the ghost of a lost boy. He was never a
lonely traveller…he was me. And I was him. We were one life. He was me in every way imaginable, I just hadn't realised it before.
I took one last
look at the panic surrounding me and at the boy who had suffered, then been
released. Just like me. Then I closed my eyes and I let go.
My life was normal, until everything changed.
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