Colds and damp sand

If anyone out there has the cure to the common cold, stop being selfish and share... I think I've either had one cold for five weeks or two colds humping each other for the same duration... I'm getting to the point where I'm prepared to either napalm it out with alcohol and curry or marry the damn thing - Table for two Mrs Twistedwitch-Cold?

Whatever... The last couple of weeks have been a harvest festival of book reading and dvd/tv watching; I cruised through the Steig Larson trilogy, read a couple of urban fantasy titles, a children's fantasy, a horror proof I've had kicking around for about three years and am now ignoring all else for a proof that just may be the next big thing... I'll let you know when I've finished it. Tv-wise, we've just finished watching the final episodes of Lost and 24 and one was really cool and the other was a meta-physical shambles. I'll leave it up to you to decide which was which.

Whilst we haven't made it to the cinema for a few weeks, we keep catching up with films on dvd and Holmes has to be the most recent viewing of note. I have to admit, I wasn't impressed by the trailers at the time, but Downey Jnr really stole the show. The film was a tangental re-telling of the essence of Sherlock Holmes, were he too self absorbed to be socially aware, smug with his incredible intelligence and somehow charming and utterly irritating at the same time... Like House in a frock coat really... The whole film looked authentic enough to soot up your eyeballs and Downey Jnr yet again proves that he's more than just a clothes horse for a cool costume.

Writing... I've done some. We're working on Cheesemint scripts at the moment and I have a short story to try and cobble together in the next week mixing myth and military, so wish me luck. But here's some of the random writing practice that came up in the last week - it started off really nostalgic and golden and turned swiftly towards the sitting-in-the dark-rocking-and-babbling with very little warning. Sorry about that. I'll try and curb that next time...

Deeper Than Damp Sand

The rope trails down the rock face and frays into nothing miles away from the waves kissing stone below. I could remember when there once used to be a path here, little more than a wish clinging onto the cliff and you hung onto the rope for dear life as you crept around the corner to get to the beach beyond. The beach that couldn't be seen from land or sea.

I glance behind me, thinking I hear footsteps scuffing the impacted earth and there's no one there, only the breeze shaking the brambles. I keep looking back, expecting the faces from twenty years before to tumble around the corner, sunburnt and their hair salt-styled from the sea... Somewhere above me I can hear a bird singing, its song mixing with the sea and wind into a perfect moment of summer.

The tension in my gut draws me back to the frayed rope and I grab it, feeling the years coiled in my hand. As if with one pull, the world could cast off years, the path would scramble from the sea to cling to the rock, the lines would fade from my skin and the air would be full of familiar laughter.

“Just jump in, stop wasting the summer...”

I hear him, just like he's there and I spin round, the smile already on my face. But the path's empty, just bramble shadows and dreams.

I look back at the sea and lean over the end of the path, holding onto the rope as I watch the waves below. The water looks less blue now, like grey metal buckling a long way away. My knuckles are the colour of bone around the rope and my skin looks wrapped tight enough to split, all scars and lines.

The singing bird darts out from the hedge behind me and flutters out over the sea, swooping in its song. Before I know what I'm doing, I've kicked off my shoes and jumped. Feeling the wind rush to encourage me, the sun sparking off of those giggling waves.

The water is a cool slap, knocking laughter into bubbles as it pulls me into its blue embrace. I fight to the surface and let the laughter peal, hearing it bounce off of the cliff and ringing back at me like a memory. I tread water, surprised at its warmth, glad that the summer heat has been seeping into it for months. I flip the hair from my smile and start swimming for the curve in the cliff and the beach beyond.

The sea laps my ears as I turn the corner doing a careful breaststroke and there it is, the beach where we used to spend most of our summers. Apart from the path, nothing has changed, the cliff's shielded it from erosion and it remains a sweep of golden sand, with a few boulders bathing in the shallows.

I find the sand beneath my feet and wade through the water to the dry sand, hot and oozing through my toes. I turn, taking it all in, the shelves cut into the cliffs by the sea, the perfect sand, the sky like a polaroid from every summer that ever was. If I close my eyes I'll be eighteen again, standing here at the start of the summer, waiting for the magic to happen.

I open my eyes and walk over to the closest rock, sitting with my bare feet in the water and feeling the heat in the stone drying my clothes. I sit facing the cliff, trying to remember, where it was, where to dig...

My knees sink into the warmth of the sand as my fingers burrow deeper, into the damp layer abandoned by sea and sun, digging until my nails hit metal. The biscuit tin is heavy with emotion as I pull it from the sand, the red paint infected with a crust of rotting wet metal. I go back to the rock, back to the sunlight and rest the cold metal on my lap, watching the sea and listening to the melody of the coast.

I don't need to open the tin to know what's inside it, we each left something behind that summer; my battered yellow Walkman, Rory's horror book he was reading at the time, Paul left the folding knife he'd only just bought, Joe, the watch he'd had since he'd been twelve. And Si...Si left something else, something too big to fit in the tin. Si left his boat, buried in the sand beneath, like a warped Viking funeral, the oaks tucked beneath the seats beside bottles of water, wine and salt, and a bloodied travel blanket.

The thing inside the blanket we all left. A friendship ended, an accident, a body – whatever you'd call it. Our secret. Our oath to silence. Our lives forever changed by dumb bad luck, too many drunk teenagers on a boat and a friend caught in the undertow and washed up on our favourite beach the next morning.

I close my eyes and tip my head back into the sun, listening to the seagulls fight high above the waves. The tension in my stomach has gone now. It wasn't nostalgia dragging me back here, just guilt and sadness buried deeper than damp sand.

I go back to the hole and brush the thin layer of sand from the blanket, feeling something shifting beneath, things that were once joined, now rattling loose like promises in a tin. I put the box back and fill the hole, smoothing the sand flat with slow hands. Then I lay down and let the sun sink into me, lulling me to sleep as I wait. If I wait long enough the tide will wrap me in its whispers. If I wait long enough I'll be eighteen again, surrounded by friendship that could last forever.

If I wait long enough I won't care that there's no way off of this beach.