When I was just a child, I’d have dreams.
Dreams of the crayon-coloured beaches,
Dreams of small stubs of fingers had drawn from five-dollar felts,
Dreams of seagulls.
Part I
It was a summer’s day that day. It was one of those days when the air blurred and pulled at your eyelids.
School had just finished. Children around me moaned to their parents, complaining, refusing to move from a temporary paradise of shade and into the iron cage of their car. My head attracted the heat like a moth to a flame. The air around me, moving and shifting like a living being– no, monster.
There was nothing I could do.
There was nothing I could say as I walked with my mother hand in hand into the car. There was nothing I could do as the cotton absorbed all the heat and seared my light blue dress. Nothing I could do as I strapped my seatbelt on, staring at my mother through the rear view mirror.
There was something about her hair, damp and flat from the sun- and her eyes, dusky and darkening just below her bottom lash.
She looked…worn.
Like the way the black cotton of this car was fading into grey, like the way the sun had somehow burnt pink marks onto the originally red car, like the way an eraser would slowly peel away from the dark marks of a pencil.
I hated it when my mum looked like that.
Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t reply– the waves of heat had turned into a rushing tide, ringing against my eardrums– only allowing me to stare. Words became muffled sounds. My gaze shifted beyond the window. I couldn’t think nor could I do anything except gawk at the vast blue sky as it seemed to burn in an endless inferno.
I thought to myself; people say they love summer. People always speak about summer as if it was a haven compared to everything else. Everything was supposed to be bright. Every tree, every shrub, every daisy was supposed to smile up to the sun. Birds should’ve been soaring, laughter should’ve been carried by the wind.
So, why was it that children were crying, that the grass was brown, that almost everything was so…sad?
There was no explanation– nothing I could do.
But, like a miracle; that day, I sat in that car- hope burning almost as bright as the skies. Steam blowing from my ears, too dreary to be confused, but never too much to wonder– to dream. A dream crafted from pain, from a buried exhaustion.
That day I had sat in my car, when summer was just ripe and at its peak of relentless heat, dreaming the most simple dream a child could muster.
That day I had a dream I would chase for the rest of my life:
The dream…of the beach!
But not any beach– no. The sun wouldn’t be screaming fire down like rain. The ocean would be clear and the sand would feel like powdered snow beneath my bare feet. The beach would be covered with shells scattered across the sand like diamonds- stars would be shining bright below the sun, languidly floating atop a blanket of warm ocean.
My mum wouldn’t need to come home every day, eyebags seemingly getting darker- she wouldn’t need to suffer every afternoon, bearing the heat inside a cage with me. No– on this beach, she wouldn’t need to hide her exhaustion.
And the best part: in my small mind, the beach would have seagulls- scouring above in a mindless passion for the sun, spreading their feathers, reaching across the sky like a warm silk sheet.
Yes. Seagulls.
Seagulls because they came with the ocean- just like cheese and crackers; seagulls because my mother would loosen her smile (just a little bit) whenever she saw them fly; seagulls because the way they flew felt so…free.
So yes. Seagulls would live in this simple, simple dream of mine.
And maybe, one day, I could fly–feel like them too.
Part II
It was a winter’s day today. It was one of those days where you would need to hug your elbows just to stop the racks through your body.
Summer had ended, yet somehow the cold burned even more.
I dumped a stack of notebooks upon my desk- BANG. The chair creaked and buckled beneath my weight. ‘I would need to replace that soon’ I thought.
Clouds had massacred the blue of the sky, its lifeblood bled through the cuts of the thick grey skin; pouring down onto the stained glass; pounding like fists, as if demanding attention.
I pulled the curtain over the window.
Taking a dusty pen, I started scratching ink onto a half-finished sheet– chasing after that beach– eyebags seemingly getting darker.
I didn’t stop even when the thunder rolled around and the rain started ringing in my ears. I didn’t look up even when the air around me blurred– so cold that my eyes stung. I didn’t pause even when there was a knock on the door, my mother coming in, her wrinkles deepening and her eye bags the same as mine.
I didn’t stop because I knew what I would see if I looked up–
An ocean.
A beach.
But not any beach– no.
This beach had no sand; instead, it was mountains of dust; peeled off an eraser from the dark marks of a pencil. The ocean, a breathing beast of wrinkled papers, discarded like corpses thrown overboard. It was all-consuming waves of not blue– but red. Red crosses. Red ticks. Red ink; smeared across grey.
I didn’t stop because I knew I would see a beach, not of my dreams but of reality.
I didn’t stop because if I did– I would’ve asked myself…
Where are the seagulls?
Writer – Stephanie Lin
Editor – Kenneth Gong
Artist – Adelina Jones
–September 2024–
