Squall

By Samuel Zifchak

John hated the sea. He was five when his father turned into a petrel and soared over the rising waves, screeching: ‘It’s in the blood! It’s in the blood!’ He had never returned. John’s mother just knelt on the sand and waited. She still waited. John went down to the shore occasionally to bring her a biscuit or a blanket. There were two small rivulets in the sand that ran from her knees to the ocean. John hated the sight of her tear-stained face. He hated that she was helping the sea expand. He ranted at her: ‘You’re helping it grow! It took father and you’re helping it grow!’ But she didn’t listen. She listened to other things. His words only increased the flow. He spent a day making a dam of wet sand and sticks so the tears wouldn’t reach the ocean, but the next morning he found that the sea had washed it away. It gurgled and spat white foam at him. How he hated the sea.

John was eighteen when the first feather appeared. He was sitting in the old birch at the back of the garden. If he listened hard he could hear the sea laughing, but the wind whispering secrets was all the distraction John needed. While he was nodding at the latest gossip (did you hear? Mariel dropped her leaves early! How embarrassing!) he felt a prickling sensation on his left shoulder. When he reached up to brush the distraction away, he felt the soft plumes of a grey quill. He yanked it out of his skin and stared at it. The stem dripped blood onto his sap-stained jeans.

‘I don’t want it!’ Enraged, he threw the feather into the ocean. It fluttered softly before coming to rest on the departing ebb. ‘You have no right, you hear me? I don’t want it!’ The sea burbled. ‘Stay away from me!’ John ran blindly away from the breakers. He didn’t even notice his mother ’til it was too late. As his shoe connected with her kneeling form, she collapsed into the sand. Just sand collapsing into sand: it sifted softly before settling. John stared at the space his mother had occupied. He remembered how she had made him biscuits and tucked him in at night. His left shoulder prickled uncomfortably.

John dreamt of seaweed and starfish. He woke up sweating and wiped his forehead with a bloody hand. He felt weak. He spent most of yesterday pulling feathers out of his skin only to find that they had multiplied this morning. He was losing his fingers as well. They were starting to glue together. He had tried to separate them with scissors, but had been repulsed by the blood and the feel of metal grating on bone. The tap dripped in the kitchen downstairs. John knew without tasting it that the water would be salty. He shook his head, threw off his blanket and walked slowly towards the shore.

When he reached the beach the tide was in. The water curled around his webbed feet. John closed his eyes and waited. Small circles expanded in the water below him. A storm brewed on the horizon.

Samuel Zifchak is a Melbourne-born writer/editor. An avid traveller, Sam has worked various roles in the publishing industry both in Australia and the United Kingdom after completing his second Masters degree in Editing and Communications. He has just returned from a two-years stint working in London and now divides his time pursuing his own creative endeavours and editing freelance.