Oh I do like to be...

Cherry

By Caldwell

Fri, 16 May 2025
  • 614 reads
5 comments
 

We spread our towels over pebbles and dream of sand. Windbreakers flap like prayer flags, and the sun, though pale, burns with quiet malice. Children scream with delight, their voices high and bright as gulls, and we watch them chase foam across the shingle, blissfully unaware of what lies beyond.

It is all froth, on the surface. The neon-coloured inflatables, the sugared crunch of rock, the slap of deckchairs. We hum the old song without meaning to. Oh, I do like to be...

And yet the sea stares back. Black, heavy, ancient. The kind of dark that forgets the sun ever existed. Somewhere out there, the wreckage of a thousand bad decisions rolls gently in the current. Waste. Secrets. Unnamed things with eyes like marbles.

Still, we wade in. Let our toddlers paddle, shrieking, while we admire the sparkle on the water like it's something harmless. And maybe it is, today.

Certificate U
Story
Short Prose
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Turlough on

The wreckage of a thousand bad decisions...

Having formerly been a seafarer myself, that's something that often goes through my mind. 

The nearest sea to where I live now is the Black Sea. Apparently there are all sorts of things floating down that way from Ukraine less than 600 kms up the coast. Black Sea restaurants no longer serve the shellfish that they were previously famous for and fishing boats have to be extra vigilant because there are mines that have broken free from their moorings.

When I'm beside the sea I'm not always beside myself with glee.

Turlough

Submitted by HarryC on

As someone who lives by the coast myself, these are the things I love about it.

Love the sound-sensory details: the sugared crunch of rock, the slap of deckchairs.

I think I might head down there right now...

Submitted by Jessiibear on

This piece takes me back to childhood days at the beach with my family—where the sun felt warm but the sea always held a quiet, mysterious weight beneath its sparkle. 

Your writing captures that perfectly: bright laughter and fluttering windbreakers on the surface, but dark, ancient depths staring back. It’s a vivid, bittersweet memory of how even the most innocent moments carry a shadow beneath.

Well-deserved cherries :)

Jess

Submitted by Caldwell on

Thank you. Yes, always been scared of the depths. I remember having some googles on in clear water where I could see the ground beneath, reassuringly close, but then I took a few more strokes, immediately the water temperature dropped, and there was no more ground, I was floating above an infinite blackness, and I panicked so badly... Like a Martin Parr photograph from his series, "The Last Resort", combined with the original Jaws movie and something even more ominous and terrifying than a shark - the black void, cold and serious. 

 

Submitted by Jessiibear on

Wow, that memory gave me chills! That’s exactly the feeling your piece captured so well.

I’ve always found that contrast fascinating — the cheerful chaos of a beach day set against something ancient and indifferent just beyond the shore.

And now I’m going to go look up that Martin Parr series…

Jess