Run

A fisherman and his son crossed the beach, pausing to rest at the high tide line where the wet sand met the dry. A flock of pelicans, long beaks stabbing through the bitter onshore wind, soared just a few feet off the water, returning home to the nests hidden in the cracks and crevices of the leeward side of the Andover Cliffs. Two by two, the squadron followed their leader around the cliff’s barren granite rock-face and disappeared.

The little boy took his father’s cracked, sunburned hand. “Will it hurt, daddy?”

“No, it’s like a fish-hook jab. It happens too fast to hurt much.”

The boy’s lip quivered.

The fisherman hugged his son. “That’s only if it catches you. Remember, it’s like a sea lion, fierce in the water but not made for the land. Run like you do when you’re racing your brothers, and you’ll be fine. You always win, right? Surely you can beat me, with my bad leg and all.”

The child nodded.

“That’s my boy.” The father pointed west. “The sun is setting now. It’ll be here soon. It always arrives with the solstice’s last light.”

“Daddy, I’m scared.”

The man knelt next to the boy. “I was afraid when my father brought me to my sea trial. But you’re twice as brave as I am. I would never climb the cliffs to hunt for eggs like you do with your brothers.”

The boy swelled with pride. “I can climb better than they can.”

The father awkwardly rose to his feet, favoring his left leg. “Come along. Remember, after tonight, you can join me on the fishing boats. Don’t you want to be a fisherman, just like your father?”

The boy squared his jaw. “Yes, Father. I want to be just like you.”

“Good. Remember, it’s the fisherman who provides for his family. Who would take care of your mother and your sisters if I didn’t fish?” The father tousled his boy’s sun-bleached hair. “Let’s get closer to the cliffs and out of this damn wind.”

The father set off down the beach. His shorter left leg gave the man a slight rocking gait as he walked and his son soon outpaced him. When they reached the broken shell of MacAlister’s trawler had washed ashore during one of last season’s winter storms, the fisherman called for a break. He raised a hand to his head to shield his eyes from the setting sun and scanned the surf. His face went white. “Son, quick, quick now.”

“Daddy, I want to go home. I’m tired.” The boy began to cry.

“Come on now. None of that. Real men don’t cry. What would your mother say if she saw you blubbering like a baby? Go walk right on the water’s edge. It’ll be easier there on the hard packed sand.”

The boy wiped the tears off his cheek. He stopped part way down to the water, picked up a rock and heaved it into the sea. He glanced back at his father who, still searching the waves for movement, hadn’t seen.

The incoming breakers raced over the boy’s bare feet as he moved up the beach on the wave groomed sand. Along the way, the boy drug one of the long strands of kelp a squall had torn from its moorings and deposited to rot on the beach. Flies leapt off as it slithered along behind him.

He turned to look for his father, forgetting the first thing a parent instructed every lad and lass from the moment they could crawl: never look away from the MotherSea for she is cruel.

A wave rose out of nowhere and broke at the boy’s feet, pummeling him. He screamed as the icy water soaked through his threadbare shirt.

The churning surf hissed by him until, energy spent, it angrily reversed direction. The lad braced himself against the sucking current, his feet burrowing like a crab as the water rushed back towards the depths. Quicksand-like muck, pebbles and broken shells rushed to fill the holes left behind and erased all evidence of the boy’s struggle. A second wave broke and smacked his naked thighs like a leather belt, knocking him to his knees. The son cried out for help.

The father raced to his boy’s side but stopped when a grey-silver glint of reflected sunlight just offshore caught his eye. The boy rose to his feet and searched the sea but saw nothing. Whatever had caught his father’s attention had disappeared below the water’s surface.

The fisherman called out, “Don’t run until I tell you.”

The boy nodded, tears running down his face. “I won’t, Father.”

The onshore winds gusted, bringing with it the reek of rotting seaweed and decaying fish. The fisherman walked a few steps backward away from the sea and stumbled over a piece of driftwood. Eyes fixed on the undulating water, he regained his footing.

The boy frantically searched the waves. “What’s that smell? It’s here, isn’t it? Should I run?”

“Stand still, son. It’s just outside the shore break. It knows we’re here but won’t chase until we move. It knows it’s too slow to catch us both.” The father began to sob. “Close your eyes, son. I’ll tell you when to run.”

“Okay, Father.” The boy closed his eyes for a second, then reopened them. “Father, I love—”

But the fisherman didn’t hear him. He was already limping as fast as he could across the sand toward home and his waiting wife and daughters, like his father had done to his oldest brother twenty years ago.

***

Sam Wetley is a recovering computer programmer with two kids and a labradoodle. He lives in a sleepy beach side town in California famous for vampires, surf and rollercoasters.