Three - Nowhere

The eternal, rhythmical crashing sound of the ocean surf filled my head. The caw of seagulls accompanied, harmonizing the melody of the ocean. They hung in the air, almost motionless, as they glided against the wind. They reminded me of model airplanes, hanging from wires. The air was moist, and filled with the smell of salt. Oil and rust was a faint odor, left in the city, about a mile behind us.

The ceiling of clouds hid the noon sun, painting the landscape in a sleepy grey. The wind was even faster today. It carried cool ocean air through me, chilling the tips of my fingers. The sand, stretching for miles as it followed the endless coast, mimicked the wind, squishing through my toes as I marched toward the thundering waves, leaving them slightly numb.

A few cold appendages was quite an improvement, I thought, from the state I left my body in yesterday: my swollen knee had shrunk down to normal, the wound under my shirt no longer required a bandage, and my head ceased to feel like a crushed grape. Dried blood still cracked uncomfortably between my joints.

Next to me, Zoey hummed a familiar song as we stumbled through the sand. She copied me with her shoes dangling from her right hand, which, like her left, hung out from her sides, as if she were playing airplane. Her long hair blew like a cape behind her bowed head, her concentration on her feet as they smooshed through the sand.

“I don’t wanna carry my shoes anymore.” Her voice was barely audible underneath the cacophony of wind, gulls, and surf.

I took a minute to respond. Two seagulls had collided in midair. One of them was missing a leg. The seagull with two legs cawed menacingly and beat its wings at the other. The one-legged seagull tilted its wings to the side and surrendered its airspace to the stronger one.

“Well,” I finally responded, “you don’t want to get sand in them, right?”

She hopped over a seashell. It tapered from shades of grey to orange. “I wanna put them in the backpack.”

Ahead, in the distance, I saw a Jeep parked in the sand. Seagulls swarmed over it, like a wispy, feathery cloud.  “We lost the backpack when we went out yesterday, remember?”

Zoey raised her head skyward, her startlingly blue eyes refused to be dampened by the grey paintbrush of the clouds. “No.”

I knew she wouldn’t.

The Jeep was getting closer. As we passed it, several dozen yards to the left, the musty smell of death suddenly entered my nostrils. Up close, I noticed the white star above its back tire, marking it as military. Two soldiers sat, slumped half out of their seats, hovering over the sand. Their seatbelts were all that kept them from falling. Stark white skulls peered out from under their helmets. Seagulls took turns diving down and tugging at their Kevlar with their hungry beaks.

Zoey saw the Jeep too. Her pace started slowing as we passed it, her head turning round, keeping her gaze on it.

The inside of my elbow started to itch, the dried blood chafing my skin “Zoey, do you know where we’re going?”

Zoey’s head snapped back to face me. For a second, her face held confusion and discomfort. A broad smile quickly replaced her gaping mouth. She did a little hop. “Home!”

I smiled at her, relieved I had pulled her attention away from the military-grade lunch for the seagulls. “But we don’t call it Home, right?”

“No, we call it Nowhere.”

Another gull crashed into the one missing a leg. This time, the one-legged gull fought back, making a tangled mess of legs and wings. The attacking gull must not have expected a fight; it flew off, leaving the one-legged defender free to glide where he pleased.

“Why do we call it that?”

Zoey hopped in a circle around me as we continued our march toward the surf. “Because if anyone hears us talking about home, they’ll just think we’re just talking about nowhere! And then they won’t follow us there and take our vegetables!”

I laughed. She giggled, delighted at the sound. We watched each other, simply thrilled at the sight. I stopped marching and took a knee. She stepped up in front of me, her blue eyes nearly filling my vision. I poked her nose three times.

“Boop. Boop. Boop.”

Zoey cupped her nose with both hands, her shoes falling to the sand with a soft thump. Her entire body convulsed with giggles, and she hopped in place, simply overtaken with giddiness. I happily watched her lose herself in laughter, until she fell backwards, off balance from merriment.

I scooped her up and held her under my arm like a football. She continued to laugh. I almost forgot to pick up her shoes in my other hand. Carrying Zoey and two pairs of shoes, I happily trumped down the beach.

“Valuables, silly lady,” I said when her fits of laughter lessened, “’and then they won’t take our valuables.’” I shook her up and down in my arm in feigned exasperation, and her laughter redoubled, piercing the chorus of the beach.

My feet grew colder as they reached wet sand. I put Zoey down and knelt down to her eye level. “Now, what’s the first rule of going Nowhere?”

Zoey’s face was still stuck in a smile. She giggled a couple times before she could answer. I could tell she was trying hard to refocus. She put her hands behind her back and teetered her upper body from left to right. “The first rule is…is always walk straight back to the water.”

I smiled at her. “Very good, sweet heart. And what’s the second rule?”

She danced from one foot to the other, uncomfortable on the cold sand. “Um, the second rule is don’t get…don’t go past your knees in the water.”

“That’s right. I’m going to break the second rule, now; I want you to stay right here, OK?”

“Daddy, I’m cold.”

“I know, I’ll be right back.” I stood up and looked out at the ocean. My heart hammered, warning me not to do something so stupid. The dried blood inside my elbow redoubled its chafing, urging me to dive in.

The seagull with one leg hovered above me, a dozen feet out from the breaking waves. I straightened my shoulders and ran forward, my legs crashing clumsily through shin-deep water, the icy cold instantly numbing my feet. I took a deep breath, fell forward and closed my eyes. The shocking cold hyper-stimulated my skin, filling my body with goose bumps. I could feel the foamy surf swirl over every ridge in my skin.

After the initial shock of the freezing water abated, I quickly rubbed my body all over, freeing my skin of its coat of dried blood. I could feel sheets of it detach at once, contoured pieces of my body violently thrashing to and fro in the water. After scrubbing my face for the second and last time, I felt the last shell of blood pop off from behind my ear.

Heart pounding, I put my feet underneath me and stood up. The unforgiving waves did their best to knock me back over. I powered past them, my clothes sticking uncomfortably to my skin, and made my way back to dry land, much cleaner than a minute ago. Zoey was waiting for me, still dancing from side to side.

“Never do that, OK, Zoey?” I plopped down and sat next to her, my back to the beach. I began to shiver. My teeth chattered.

“OK, Daddy.”

A seagull dove from within the flock. It struck the one-legged gull, who seemed to be waiting for another attack. It rolled in midair, absorbing most of the ambusher’s blow. Before it could regain its balance, though, a second seagull attacked from the other direction. The one-legged gull took the full blow and dropped, losing nearly all its altitude before it caught itself a few feet from the rolling waves. There was nothing to be done about the third seagull, who landed roughly on top of it, flapping its wings heavily until the defending gull fell into the water, just a little farther out from where I jumped in.

The seagull bobbed in the water for several seconds. Then, almost too quickly to follow, it was pulled under the surface, a single white feather remained, marking its grave. I shivered; not from the cold.

I stood up and pulled my shirt over my head. The neck tugged stubbornly at my ears, and sand clung to my wet legs and clothes. “What’s the third rule of going Nowhere?” The wind stuck pins through my bare shoulders and chest, though I immediately felt warmer.

Zoey was already reaching her arms in the air, ready to be picked up from the cold, wet sand. “The third rule is to never…to always keep your, um, back to the water.”

I tucked my soggy shirt into the waist of my pants. “Exactly,” I beamed at her as I picked her up and placed her on my shoulders.

“Daddy, you’re all wet!” Zoey half giggled, half groaned.

“Yeah? You got a problem with that?” I grabbed her wrists and rubbed her hands vigorously through my wet hair, splattering us both with cold mist. She squealed with laughter. I chuckled underneath her.

And then we continued our trek, along the fringe of wet sand. I quickly surveyed the vast beach from which we had traveled. Two sets of footprints serpentined casually down to the water, where they disappeared, eaten by the relentless ocean.

My heartbeat quickened. Far in the distance, on a tall sand dune, I thought I could make out a blurry humanoid shape. The flock of seagulls swarmed in front of my line of sight, another unwanted gull being preyed upon. When the swarm passed, the blur was gone. I strained my ears, but, like Zoey’s voice, any other sounds were swallowed by the elements and by the warring gulls, let alone any sounds being made a half mile away. The wind was blowing the wrong direction to warn me like yesterday, and even that had been lucky. I decided it was most likely just a trick of the wind and sand.

Still, I made regular scans of the distant beach in all directions as I carried Zoey back to Nowhere. For nearly an hour, I marched the line of earth and sea, stopping every ten minutes or so to turn and double back for a minute or two. The clouds started to break up, revealing the bright sun, which transformed the ocean surface into a sheet of sparkling diamonds.

Finally, the distant boardwalk separating beach and city ended. The cityscape tapered down from the heavens, until it lay hidden behind tall rocks and underbrush. Even the beach started to narrow, until only a few feet of white sand separated the battering waves from the naked trees, their colorful leaves nearly all fallen. The sand became harsher, twigs, rock clusters, and other sharp hazards became common obstacles, waiting for a soft foot to ambush.

A rotted wooden sign stood to my left, informing me that I had reached the end of the public beach, and was not permitted to swim past this point. Zoey had fallen asleep in my arms, her thumb stuck in her mouth. I took one last look at the beach behind me; a solitary skunk waddled down a nearby sand dune and into the bushes, and a bird of prey circled high over the waves. The smell of salt still overpowered my nostrils, and the caw of seagulls still mixed with the beat of the ocean.

Satisfied we were alone, save for the witnesses of nature, I shook my arms up and down. “Zoey, we’re here.”

I set her down and she stood next to me, rubbing her eyes and yawning. My arms felt lighter than air after carrying her for so long. I swung them in big circles, getting the blood to flow through them properly again. My throat spasmed, forcing a dry, painful cough. I realized I hadn’t had anything to drink today; or eat.

Unfortunately, Zoey seemed to have a similar revelation, for at that moment, she placed her hands on her belly and frowned at me. “Daddy, I’m really hungry!” Her blue eyes became blurry, their sharpness obscured by the forming curtain of tears.

“I know, baby, just a little longer and I’ll make us dinner.” I helped Zoey tie her sneakers and fastened my own, then squirmed my still-damp shirt back on.

Five minutes later, I had dragged the heavy aluminum rowboat out from its hiding place in the overgrowth while Zoey did the same, one at a time, with the two wooden oars. I fastened the oars in their locks and made sure Zoey was centered in her seat.

Right before shoving off, I set my gaze out to the ocean, where about a mile out, a bare rock sat, stubborn and defiant against the constant wear of the waves. It was maybe a hundred feet across, barely visible from the beach. Perched on the center of the sharp, viscous looking island, standing over fifty feet tall, was our home; Nowhere, the lighthouse. A faded red stripe spiraled itself to the top.

I pushed the rowboat through the rocky sand until I felt the chilling water splash my ankles, and hopped in. I sat backwards in the rowing position and watched the mainland float away as each stroke of carved wood pulled our vessel through the rough waves. Our life source, our deathtrap, waited silently, patiently for our inevitable return.

“Daddy, why can’t the bad fish get us in the boat?” I heard Zoey’s voice behind me. I turned my head to see her leaning over the edge, peering into the water, her long hair dangling just inches over the surface.

“I’m not sure, honey, they just can’t, I guess. Sit still, please; don’t go looking over the sides.”

She returned to the center of her front bench, gazing ahead at the approaching island. It was ten minutes of rowing before we hit bottom, a welcoming, hollow scraping noise. Zoey jumped out first and did her best to keep the boat centered as I walked up and hopped out.

There were no sandy beaches out here; just slippery black rocks. No cawing seagulls either; the barren rock showed no signs of life, a black wart in the ocean.

“I wish there were birds here,” Zoey mumbled as she stepped over gaps in the rocks toward the lighthouse.

“Zoey, please be careful, honey; I don’t want you to slip out here,” I warned automatically as I heaved the rowboat out of the water. “It’s good that there aren’t seagulls here, right? It makes it look like no one’s home.” I flipped the rowboat upside-down and finished dragging it over to the small metal loop that protruded from the solid rock " one of the remaining pieces of the dock. I grabbed the chain hooked to the loop. It was wet and rough, like metal sandpaper. I fastened the other end of the chain to the bow of the boat, and joined Zoey at the front door.

 

Just a little while later, we were sitting at the dinner table, eating cold spaghettios out of big metal bowls, our spoons scraping loudly in the tiny room. The endless ocean stretched forever out of the window, the sun was preparing to crash into the horizon. Two empty cans sat on the table between our bowls, the contents of one and a half of which sat in Zoey’s bowl. I ignored my grumbling stomach; I would feel better in the morning. What was important was that she saw me eating, even a little.

“Now, mine tastes like…marshmallows!” Zoey said, and shoved a large spoonful of cold pasta and sauce into her mouth. Her bright blue eyes widened, bathing the tiny kitchen in blue. Her mouth closed around her spoon in a wide smile. “Mmmmm”

“Ooh, marshmallows?” I asked from across the table. Her head bobbed enthusiastically as she savored the imagined taste. I took an experimental nibble from the spaghettios piled on my spoon. “Hmm…mine tastes like…fried calamari.” I finished the modest spoonful. It tasted like cold spaghettios, though I forced my eyes wide open, feigning surprise at the deliciousness.

“What’s fried calamari?”

I finished another bite, and reached a gnarled hand across the table. In my spookiest, raspiest voice, I croaked “Squid!” and wiggled my fingers at her like tentacles.

“Ewww!” Zoey giggled, swatting my hand.

“Now mine tastes like donuts!” Zoey exclaimed after a minute of laughing and swatting tentacles.

We laughed and joked through the rest of our dinner " Zoey ate her entire serving. The bowls and spoons were washed outside and left to dry next to the cupboard, which now only held eight cans of food. I sighed heavily as I closed it, my stomach still growling pointlessly.

“Daddy?” Zoey said hesitantly as I pulled her quilted blanket over her. The sun had sunk halfway into the ocean. Stunning reds and oranges leapt through the open window, carrying with it the ever present crash of the ocean on rocks. The only other source of light in the room was the lantern set on the dresser next to the door, casting sharp shadows on the three bedroom walls.

“Yes, Sweety?” I tucked the warm blanket under her feet.

 “I miss Mommy.” I snapped my head up, quite startled. My stomach twisted painfully; not from hunger. Her blue eyes gazed into mine, a look of pleading in them.

The tiny bedroom seemed to become even smaller, the three walls closed in on me as they spun. The suffocating room pulsed in and out, as if I was kneeling inside some great beast. The crashing waves were miles away.

“You…I miss her too,” I finally said. “But don’t worry, I’m here.” I leaned in to kiss her, the room still bearing down on me.

“What did she look like?”

The furniture seemed to float in the air. I felt like a giant ball of lead, stuck to the floor while the world flew around me, weightless. Zoey’s blue eyes rooted me to the spot. My vision became blurry, and I blinked a long tear out of my eye.

I imagined Susan, and her delicate laugh re-inflated my body. Very slowly, the world came to a stop, and I was able to move again. I even smiled as I stroked Zoey’s long hair. “You don’t remember?” She shook her head. “Oh, Zoey…Mommy was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Really?” Zoey’s voice rang with excitement at this news.

“Of course.” My voice cracked as Susan’s smiling face showed clear as could be in my mind. I took a long, shaky breath. “She had warm green eyes. And her hair was brown and bushy.”

Zoey giggled. “Mommy’s hair was bushy?”

“Yup…And she had the most soothing voice. No matter how upset I was, all she needed to do was say ‘Shh…it’s OK; everything is OK’”

Zoey frowned. “How come she’s gone?”

I swallowed hard. The lump in my throat didn’t budge. Zoey’s hair felt like strands of silk as I combed my fingers through it. “She just…had to go, sweat heart.”

Zoey didn’t seem satisfied with my answer. I didn’t blame her. I cupped her ear and rubbed the back of her head. Several silent minutes passed. “It just takes some time,” I sang softly, “Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride…” Zoey half hummed, half mumbled along, her blue eyes shifting from sad to content.

“Everything will be just fine…” The sun was just a flaming red sliver floating on the horizon. “Everything will be alright…” The lantern’s shadows became even sharper as daylight was pulled from the sky, under the waves.

Zoey’s eyes were closed, her hands held her covers up under her chin. “I love you, Daddy,” she mumbled.

It felt like I was also underneath that warm, quilted blanket. “I love you too, Zoey. Goodnight.”

Finally, I kissed her on the forehead, and left the little bedroom, taking the lantern as I exited. I walked down the spiral stairs, still dazed. My footsteps’ echoes dominated the narrow staircase. I reached the kitchen, and put the now-dry bowls and spoons away.

 Suddenly, the cozy little room seemed far too big. My legs felt rubbery, and I pressed my hands on the tabletop, bracing myself. I watched the wooden grains on the floor vibrate, and realized my vision was blurring again, more tears forming. “Everything will be just fine,” my voice, small and insignificant in the giant dining room, quavered and slurred. “Everything will be alright…”

I stood in place for a long time, concentrating only on taking long, deep breaths. Slowly, the room shrunk back to normal, and my knees were solid once again. I decided to go outside and double check the rowboat’s chain. Some cool air might do me some good. Lantern in hand, I stepped into my sneakers and pulled the sturdy, wooden front door open.

Two things filled the open doorway: The rolling boom of the ocean, and a woman. Just inches from where I stood, she held up her closed fist, as if she were about to knock. Her long, wet hair was wrapped loosely around her face, clinging to her skin, dripping onto her jacket. Her eyes were sharp, green, and wide with shock. The lantern, held out between us, threw our long, flickering shadows in opposite directions.

I didn’t know this woman.

Just over the crash of the waves, I heard her voice: “Jim? Jim Fisk?”

Author's Note

One of my writing goals for this book is to include as little exposition as possible. I want the reader to get a vast majority of the information they need through dialogue, or through the active thoughts of the narrator. My hope is to accomplish this in an organic fashion that doesn't also leave the reader constantly back-tracking for missed information. Instead, I want the reader to be able to say "Aha! this explains that thing from earlier! And I figured it out by myself." Anytime this happened to me while reading (or even with TV and movies), it made the discovery mean so much more than if I simply had it all told to me in exposition. Being told "this is important" always felt like I was being told what I had to take away from it, which defeats the purpose, in my opinion.

Reviews

[Kianna]

Dear Alex,

There's an overuse of semi colons. They are used in between two independent clauses and are not to be used as commas or periods. A few examples include,

"I shivered; not from the cold."

"I realized I hadn’t had anything to drink today; or eat."(probably a typo)

"Perched on the center of the sharp, viscous looking island, standing over fifty feet tall, was our home; Nowhere, the lighthouse"

"There were no sandy beaches out here; just slippery black rocks"

"My stomach twisted painfully; not from hunger. Her blue eyes gazed into mine, a look of pleading in them"

There may have been some other places, but I'll leave the rest of that to you.

Also, I love the variation of long and shot sentences, but I feel like some sentences are so long they start to run together. One example would be here, "The sand, stretching for miles as it followed the endless coast, mimicked the wind, squishing through my toes as I marched toward the thundering waves, leaving them slightly numb." Another example is here, "The sand became harsher, twigs, rock clusters, and other sharp hazards became common obstacles, waiting for a soft foot to ambush." and here, "Unfortunately, Zoey seemed to have a similar revelation, for at that moment, she placed her hands on her belly and frowned at me." I felt like these sentences and some more probably were running over each other and could be revised. Just be careful with long sentences.

Also this is kind of bugging me, but why did you describe the ocean as "eternal" here, "The eternal, rhythmical crashing sound of the ocean surf filled my head." Rhythmical was perfectly fine as it tied into cawing of the seagulls creating this melody. "Eternal" just throws me off and makes me think you're starting a poem, but that's just personal preference. It's not that big of a deal.

Also, I have a question. So, the island is where they live. Why did they go in the city? Was it to get something? Did they just make that island home? Or was the earlier chapter a while ago?

Besides those two things and that one question, I found Zoey to be adorable. Her reactions and actions just makes me giggle. As I said, her innocence really adds a breath of fresh air and compliments Jim nicely. I loved the relationship she has with Jim and how you characterize them. I also enjoyed the touching scene where Zoey asked Jim about her mother and how Jim had to put up a brave face. I thought you handled that scene very well. I kind of wanted a little more info about Susan because I didn't quite understand how a woman's hair can be bushy. Maybe it was meant for Jim just to be silly, but yeah.

Oh, I also loved your imagery and how well you once again have placed me where Jim happens to be. Are the seagulls supposed to say something about the world and backstory of the world? Not sure what the seagulls were for besides imagery so I thought maybe they were symbolic for something. Anywho, I especially love how you can describe the smell of things because personally I struggle with smells. I feel like they play a big part in connecting the reader to your world. I loved the ending because I love cliff hangers so nothing to say but good job there.

Soo, good job! I am looking forward to the next chapter.

Sincerely,

Kianna

God bless

[Alex]

Thanks for another great review! Good call with the semicolons - I guess I went a little crazy with them >_>. I'm not super concerned about the long sentences, but I do appreciate you pointing them out.

I used the word eternal to describe the rhythmical nature as never ending.

Good question about why they left the island. Rereading this chapter, it's not as obvious as I thought. There were a couple passing lines to hint at it: when Zoey asks to put her shoes in the backpack, but Jim tells her that they had lost it. The other is when they're rowing toward the island, and Jim refers to the mainland as their life source (and deathtrap). Between these two lines, I explain that they had gone out for supplies, but lost them. I think it would be a good idea for me to go back and maybe make this a little clearer, thank you.

Do a quick Google Image search of "Brown Bushy Hair" if you want an idea what that looks like, or just picture Hermione Granger. I didn't really have a single specific point for the seagulls. They made for an easy break in dialogue, they showed Jim's knack for drifting in and out of a conversation, they reflected the kill-or-be-killed nature of the world, and they also showed that the water was not a safe place to go.

I feel like I'm walking a very thin line with Zoey between annoyingly cute and simply unengaging, so I'm very pleased to know that you're enjoying her - I must be sitting on a nice balance, so I will stay the course!

[Kianna]

What kind of supplies were they looking for in the city? It seemed pretty dangerous. So why not stay far away? People can survive on an island. I see what you were getting at with the brown bushy hair, but bushy is connoted with unruly. Hermione's hair is just thick and wavy.

I think you've made her ok. She's innocent, but not completely oblvious to everything going on. Her getting upset because she's hungry, lonely, and what not make her human. So, I think you've got a good balance.