– inspired by Dear One –
When the dark night seems endless, and the clock ticking in the library become a great awk pecking my skull open, I pace.
My letters are all written: one to my parents thanking them for everything they have done for me; one for my brother — that’s the brother who sends me postcards from Florida and has no clue that my husband passed away five years ago; one for my Aunt Alina Jewwells who believes it is her place to dictate my life to me; and the last one is for My Regret…
Shell.
Skin the opalescent rose of a whelk, but with an edge to her that cut as sharply as any shell tumbled about in the sea. Hair that was straight, straggly to most, but that is because she loved to allow the breezes from the sea to toss it about. Her eyes were a pale sea green that never seemed to look at you, but beyond you, to wherever your soul resided.
Shell was not pretty, but more what one might describe as handsome. All of her clothing was homespun, home dyed, and finally sewn by herself. Her fingers were calloused, claw-like on colder days, but her touch was as gentle as velvet. Rarely did she wear shoes, and if she had to they were sandals of Sisal rope, or hemp.
Shell lived on the beach in a large house that appeared to be carved from a rock that jutted rudely out across the beach, to tease the waves that licked at its base. Perhaps it was. I could never tell.
Her house smelled of salt, and sand, ancient dried herbs, and her favourite dried roses which hung from the ceiling in bundles. The furniture was a terrible meshing of things from the junkyard, items found on the sand, and delicate pieces that came from an aged mother somewhere in Ireland.
Shell slept in a hammock so she could rock to sleep.
Animals came and went from Shell’s house. They did not belong to her, but they visited. The cats would lounge around the house, deposit souvenirs of fur, and the dogs would gambol down the sand with Shell. She would feed them, talk to them, and then they would leave.
They always left.
And Shell would mourn their loss for a day, and then go for one of her very long walks.
I asked Shell about those walks. I imagined both wonderful things, and awful things on those walks. They were very long walks, and sometimes Shell would disappear herself, but then she would be seen, sitting with her back against the weathered wooden door to her home, where she would be writing in one of her journals.
The mourning would end that evening with a small bonfire at the edge of the waves. No more would be said of her animal visitor. Neither of us would mention her walk.
I think I fell in love with Shell, but I was afraid. I once had a husband, didn’t I? I couldn’t love a woman. I wish that I had, though. When Shell kissed me I could not explain that I was afraid, and so, like the edge of a shell that she could become, she turned upon me sharply. I was never to come near again.
It is when the nights seem endless and the library clock ticks maddeningly that I look upon those letters. Oh, they were each written at different times in my life, and at one time I thought they would serve no purpose other than to be words never to be seen. This morning all of that changed. The flashing light, those who “just had to see”, the yellow tape looking so entirely wrong on the sand, and its ends floating in the regretful sea.
I clutch Shell’s letter tightly to my chest when I feel the pain of my lungs closing. I think I might be crying, but if I am, I do not care. Fingering the letter that is filled with the words I was terrified to say, I can only think of her. Shell. My greatest regret. Unlike the other letters I will be able to deliver Shell’s letter in person.
Artwork by Denis Oliver