Waves on the Beach

CW: Discussions of suicide

She had left her shoes on shore, neatly, so that someone may know she’d been here.

The sky and the sea were the same colourless grey, melding into each other, and she was unsure where one ended and the other began. The breeze stirred the sands of the beach, waves lapping gently at her ankles. So late into November, there was no one to bear witness, save for the seagulls trilling the gentle warning of the upcoming storm. In the distance, lightning flashed.

At the violent crack, she imagined the endless silence that would follow. Instead of ozone, she imagined the smell of burnt powder. And as she reached into her purse she did not need to imagine the weight in her palms. Her mouth soured at the thought of metal in her mouth, against her teeth, that weight settling on her tongue.

Why had she come here?

Absolution, she supposed.

The first time she’d come, she’d reasoned that the idea of doing this at home seemed inappropriate. Her neighbours would be bothered by the smell, and someone would find her white walls and peach tiles painted in red. It would be such an inconvenience to clean up. It was better here, she reasoned, where the sands would swallow her and the sea would wash away even the memory of her.

But that was what she’d come to fear. She left her shoes, so someone would know where she had been. Every time, she came, and she took off her shoes, and she stood with her hand in her purse. And every time she walked away.

It began in June.

No, it began in high school, in the throes of teenage angst — but where most people grew out of it, her dread had mutated, evolving past the mundane day-to-day drama of schoolchildren to something more murky and elusive, even before she’d come to throw off her graduation hat.

What she meant was — she took his gun in June.

It wasn’t as though he noticed, on account of being dead. An old friend from her time at university, passing ships with mutual friends and a thousand planned hangouts that didn’t happen. She’d liked him, for the brief moment they’d known each other. It was a stretch to invite her to the funeral at all — but in that was the story of his life.

“He was so nice to me, in school,” the person next to her said, “We used to play boardgames in my basement.”

“I didn’t know him very well,” She admitted quietly.

“I don’t know if any of us did,” the person replied.

She didn’t understand until she saw the marks around his neck, visible despite the cosmetologist’s best efforts. An open casket funeral — she should let her family know she didn’t want people gazing at her dead face for her own funeral.

She lingered, near the back and watching the way so many shuffled awkwardly, invited by chance on knowing him briefly. He had little close friends in life, but they’d been close enough that they’d shown up in death. Or perhaps, like her, they’d come by some sense of obligation owed to a person who’d been nice to them, years ago.

“Hello,” a man said, voice as dark and heavy as the bags around his eyes looked, “How did you know my brother?”

“We went to the same university together.”

“I’m Ethan,” he said. He opened his mouth to say more, and stopped. After a moment, he opened his mouth again to say, “I didn’t know he had friends in university. He … never told us much about his time there.”

Her mind was a wayward thing. She had to stop herself from imagining why he wouldn’t, what ordeals he must have gone through in the lonely hallways of their university, of classes too expensive to be worth anything. But then, she thought of her own time, and those hallways and those classes — and beyond that, the empty dorms and too many drinks at a party she never wanted to go to.

She replied honestly, “I did not know him well, but he was nice to me.”

Ethan’s lips lifted into an exhausted smile, “He was nice to everybody.”

With nothing else to say, she nodded. Eventually, Ethan drifted away, making small talk to those still left. But the room thinned, while she lingered remained, watching as people passed her on their way to the door. She imagined the lives they must live, and wondered how they’d come to be here. If they would be here tomorrow, if she would be invited to their funerals too. She imagined death so much if it had come to become second nature to her.

She couldn’t understand why everyone else didn’t. Death was the only thing permanent, the only certainty they had. How could she not hold on to it, use it to anchor herself? How could she not think of it every moment of every day? Surely, it was normal to.

She stood there, still, as time bled into itself and she didn’t know where the funeral ended and staying past her welcome began.

Ethan eventually came back to her. He said haltingly, “I don’t know who else to ask … I mean, it’s weird to ask at all but … my parents aren’t doing great and I don't live here so I don’t know anyone … Noah’s place is a mess and …”

“Okay,” she said, barely understanding what she was agreeing to. She only noticed how Ethan’s face collapsed into relief and grief.

Noah’s apartment was not a mess, though perhaps she had lower standards. There was a collection of takeout boxes and beer cans, and a sharp acidic smell. But as far as she could see there were no pests. Ethan stared for a long time at the ceiling fan and she had to move past him. Without thinking, as though she had done it a thousand times, which she had, she started to gather boxes into a trashbag.

There were a few others who had agreed to help. One maneuvered Ethan back out the door, muttering quietly at him to breathe. She took that advice too, ignoring the smell and cracking a window open. That was when she saw a drawer half open, something glinting inside.

That was how she’d found Noah’s gun.

She slipped it into her purse, like it had always belonged to her, and went back to the boxes.

By August, she’d gone to the beach several times already. It was harder during the day, as she drowned in work and the mindless scrolling after work to recover. During the nights, she had taken to walking along the length of the beach. Her first excuse was that she could never find the right spot. During the days, she sat on the shores, and reasoned that she couldn’t do it when there were still people. She didn't always think of the gun when she went — on rare occasions, she actually sat on the sand and watched the sea without her mind getting away from her.

But as September bled into October without her noticing, time slipping through the cracks, there were less and less people at the beach. When the winds picked up, and the telltale signs of late-Autumn storms rolled in, the beach was empty virtually everyday. She had found her spot — tucked away so that no one would walk in on her — and had run out of excuses.

There was a permanence to death that scared her, nearly as much as it comforted her. Not a solution — certainly not to the banal problems that plagued her life, like work and overpriced groceries — and not an escape. It was an absolution.

A release from the obligation she had to keep on living. To keep on going, even when she had long since stopped seeing a reason to. Long since stopped knowing where one thing ended and another began. If someone were to ask her why, she had no response.

She slipped her finger into the trigger, still unable to pull the gun from her purse.

Out of the corner of her eye, there was movement. At first, she thought it was another seagull, but as she squinted she could just about make out a figure in the distance. Hesitating only for a moment, she stepped out of the ankle-deep water.

The sand stuck to her skin uncomfortably as she walked, shoes in one hand, purse slung over her shoulder.

It was Ethan.

“Hello,” she said plainly.

Ethan startled. He took a moment before he recognised her. “Oh … hi.”

“Strange day to come to a beach.”

“I could say the same to you,” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“I thought you’d gone back to … “ she searched in her mind, but couldn’t remember where Ethan had flown in from for the funeral.

Ethan didn’t seem offended. In fact, he didn’t seem to notice at all, nodding absently. “He liked the beach.”

She did not ask who he was.

Ethan laughed hollowly, “I’m lying. I don’t know what he liked … maybe when we were kids, I had fond memories of … but I don’t know what he liked, near the end.”

“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly.

He shrugged. “Stupid thing to care about not knowing.”

She thought of the gun in her purse. She hadn’t told anyone she’d come here. “It’s not.”

They stood in silence for a while, staring out into the open sea. Ethan was the first to leave and she considered the water once again but she ended up going back home again.

The next week, the sun was peeking through the clouds and it had beckoned some to the beach. Their faces said they regretted its intensity, because, despite the dull sunlight, there was a sharp cold.

Ethan was there again, where he had been. She meandered her way to him, deliberately slow. He tilted his head to acknowledge her.

This time, they talked even less. He eventually asked, "How did you know him?"

"It was at this party I don't think either of us even wanted to go to. He held my hair back when I puked into a toilet."

Ethan snorted, "Sounds like him."

When she came back the next time, and the next, and the next, she was more likely to find Ethan than not. Sometimes they talked about Noah, occasionally they talked about Ethan, rarely they talked about her and mostly they didn’t talk at all. Her side of the conversation was stilted, and his was all over the place. Sometimes, he talked a lot, and other times he didn’t say a word. Once he cried — she had no idea what to do then, except set down her shoes and wrap her arms around him.

One day, he said, “We sold Noah’s apartment.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

“It was,” Ethan said, “But … It wasn't as terrible as I thought. I don’t think he liked that place much.”

“No?”

“It didn’t look like it,” he nibbled on his lower lip, “Sometimes I think I’m learning more about him now than I did when he was alive. But mostly I’m making up stories in my head. Like he got a bunch of takeout from this one store, so I think he liked it. But I tried it and it was awful, but it was cheap, you know? Maybe that's why he got it.”

“But you tried it,” she replied, “You walked in his steps. He’d appreciate that.”

“Sounds dramatic when you say it like that,” he replied, but he seemed pleased.

It was another overcast day, wind tugging strands of her hair loose from her ponytail. Judging by the raging, crashing waves, a storm was about to break over them. Her purse felt heavier than it ever had. She hadn’t thought she felt guilty for taking the gun — but then, she hadn’t thought she’d feel scared of pulling the trigger.

She thought so often of death that she’d forgotten the before and the after.

“I need to tell you something,” she said.

“Hm?”

“I took this from Noah’s apartment.”

She pulled out the gun for the first time. In fact, it was the first time she’d properly looked at it. An old thing, with a roulette wheel and a single visible bullet. Showing it to Ethan felt good. It felt like absolution.

Ethan’s breath hitched. His hand hovered, but he did not take it.

“What the hell?”

“I took it from Noah’s apartment,” she repeated, as if that explained everything.

“You — that was — why do you have it?” his voice was pitching higher with every word.

She had no response. Ethan stared at her for a long time, face blank. Not like hers, like she had given up on expressing anything at all. It was as though he were feeling so much that his face simply couldn’t express all of it at once.

And then, with one sharp motion, Ethan snatched the gun from her hands and flung it into the sea.

“Oh,” she said simply.

“What,” he hissed out through gritted teeth, “Is wrong with you? Why would you —!”

The first drop of rain hit her nose. She had nothing to say.

%%%

The world outside was murky, rain falling in sheets and hammering against her window. So loud, that she almost missed the knock at her door.

“You were impossible to find,” Ethan said irritably, “I had to ask, like, seven people.”

She hadn’t even known there were so many people to ask.

There was a moment of silence. The last time they’d talked, Ethan had been yelling, and she had been unable to hear him over the sound of the rain. Now, he looked even more angry — she wasn’t sure if she should simply close the door.

He made the choice for her, pushing past. He began, “We need to talk — oh.”

She knew he saw Noah’s apartment. In the takeout boxes and the empty bubble tea cups, and the scent of something sour.

“You caught me at a bad time,” she said defensively.

“Do you … need help cleaning up?”

As though they had done this before, they started to gather boxes into a trashbag.

When the rain slowed to a drizzle, they found themselves at the beach once more. She had left her shoes neatly on shore, but he’d chucked his off carelessly. They stood where the waves swelled and receded.

“It comes and goes,” she explained.

“Then why didn’t he wait for it to go?” he asked miserably.

She looked down at her feet. “When you’re in it, it’s hard to remember that it’s … temporary. It feels like it’ll never end so you think of making the choice instead.”

"I don't understand."

"I can't explain it. It's different for everybody and —" she stopped. There was nothing to say. No words to explain what Noah had gone through, and why he'd done what he did, and why she didn't — wanted to, desperately, but couldn't — follow him.

They looked out silently, where the sea met the sky in a thin white line on the horizon. The world was still.