Hatched from a Hollow Place

He carved into the porous surface with the precision of a surgeon; cleanly the lines were made across its curves and the operation was underway. A transformation. The shell, its innocent cream against the rough hand that grasped it, allowed itself to give way to the demands of that which possessed it. Without argument, and without crumbling, the carving of its surface continued with the carver transfixed in his work. The clear control of his quick movements hid his impatience, and could have been mistaken for flourishes of showmanship or joy. There would be no way to tell that his grip on the shell was so firm that it threatened to crush the thing; that considerable focus on his part was restraining that very impulse. One would be forgiven therefore not to have considered rage as a defining characteristic of the artist, and, as he completed the carving of the beautiful turtle, one would also be forgiven for not comprehending the expression on the artist's face as he turned his work over in his palm. Admiration for his own work seemed only natural as the process was as seductive as the outcome was astounding. Yet, it was not admiration in his eyes, but memories, the scenes washing in and out as the waves slid onto the shore behind him. He thought to himself how he’d like to carve into the shell of the turtle and leave it hollow.

"It looks perfect." I said to him, and he looked up.

"Yes," he replied. "Perfect."

He said it like an echo from a cave, but where most of its tunnels had collapsed. We lingered longer than we should have together in that moment, our eyes meeting, and yet I was so far from meeting this man than I could have possibly ever imagined.

"Well..." I said, presenting my hand for the thing that I'd watched him change. Then I said my goodbyes. But after taking a few steps away I felt the urge to glance back. He was watching me. His eyes fixed on the hand that held his creation; his lips moving as the shells he was pushing into his mouth ground against his teeth.

Derek laughed hard with disbelief; a heavy drunken cackle that would turn heads and embarrass a wife to the point of despair. I looked away, as I always did when he managed to bring our private conversation into the domain of strangers. I could feel curious looks at the back of my neck and I rose from my seat, placed my knife and fork down, and walked across the restaurant to the sliding doors, pulled them apart and stepped out onto the decking. Once I slid the doors closed again the restaurant finally disappeared behind me and I was alone with the sea. I could hear it breathe, in and out, but as hard as I strained my eyes I could not make out the waves. I knew of course that if I walked out far enough my feet would meet it, but without the visual cue of the water and the immense blackness in front of me, I allowed myself a childlike daydream of being at the pit of an enormous stomach. In all honesty the idea of being consumed by a beast was far more enticing than sitting another moment with my husband. I turned to look back from where I came and saw Derek in the glow of candlelight gabbling to some poor waitress, she nodded, uncomprehendingly, as the carcass of his lobster sat on his plate staring at me as I stared at them. Despite having its insides devoured, its shell cracked and defiled, those sad eyes told a story of a simple freedom that I was unsure I'd ever had. I jumped as the doors suddenly slid open.

"Well come on then, love. If we get back to the room quick smart we'll catch the end of the first half. Bloody staff here don't understand the meaning of football - apparently!"

I told him to close the doors.

"What?"

"The doors Derek. Close them. Not everyone needs to listen to our arguments."

"What arguments? Excuse me for not knowing we're having an argument. Bloody hell Linda we're on holiday, Christ sake! I didn't get us out here for arguments."

"Just close the damn door Derek."

He obliged. All lumbering shoulders and groaning back.

"What's the matter with you? Lovely food, good service -"

"It's not the restaurant Derek. It's..." I allowed myself to be breathed in with the sea again. "It's what I was telling you about. The man on the beach."

He howled with laughter once more. Made crunching noises with his obnoxious mouth, then, once he was finished with his pantomime, bent down and kissed me on the top of the head. My knuckles were as white as the carved shell inside my pocket.

The foam sprayed up and outwards with the hiss of a snake and it spattered across my leg. He drank and drove. He was on holiday, and it was as if the hot Caribbean sun somehow signaled that rules no longer applied. There were plenty of holidays now; the silver lining of a childless marriage I suppose. Turning the rings on my finger that day I realized silver tarnishes.

"Lovely bit of road, ay?" he told me, a button undone at his midriff, exposing fleshy belly.

I watched the road curve from behind my shades. I didn't bother to mop up his mess. The car was a rental and I felt like one too. As we turned another corner I saw the parasols from the day before, as gaudy and as windswept as the man by my side, and then there in the distance, legs buried beneath the sand, was the carver. Alone and distanced from the tourists on their loungers; like a piece of driftwood, swept onto shore, lodged in the sand and too heavy to be carried away by sea or man. I was transfixed in fascination at how little he moved and how little he seemed. I yearned to see his face, but the sun was too bright. I wanted to see his mouth. I wanted to know what I thought I'd seen was true. We turned another corner. I lost him.

As soon as he got up to 'take a piss' I freed myself from the buzz of the restaurant and out onto the dark decking once again. I slid the doors closed behind me. What a relief it was to be away from his plate of clams. Lightening struck the horizon. I strained my eyes to peer beyond the blackness and further onto the beach.

"Tonight ya see." said a voice behind me. I almost jumped out of my skin. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle."

"Not a problem." I said, and then, "see what exactly?"

"Ah you don't know. Them shells are cracking open tonight."

He explained how baby turtles were hatching across the sand as we spoke, my husband meanwhile was mopping dark spots on his trousers from where he'd missed the bowl. I looked out to sea with this local and as the storm came closer, and the lightning with it too, I could make out, just in the briefest of moments, the shells that now lined the beach. I could almost feel the new life emerging; the hope, the joy, the sudden freedom, and then with another flash of lightening I saw him. I must have cried out because I heard the local asking me what was wrong - but I couldn't answer. I'd seen him out there in the dark. No... He'd seen me. Despite the distance from the restaurant and out across the sands of hatching eggs, his eyes had found my own. The sky rumbled and clutching the shell he'd carved I slowly walked back inside.

I awoke early. I dreamed of a child blowing raspberries at me. 'Okay, alright,' I would say, 'just let Mummy wake up. Go get your towel. We'll build a sand castle today'. But there was no raspberry. There was no child. I pulled myself up from the bed and glanced over at the mass that was Derek. His snoring had woken me as usual. I was glad. I'd been waiting till morning and now it had come. I scrawled a message on the receipt of last night's dinner and left it on the bedside table, but before I could finish it I realized that the carving was missing. I searched under the bed, the pockets of last night's outfit, the drawers - nothing. I left the room and the note I left for my husband simply read: 'GONE.'

My feet burned as I walked towards him. With each step I took his narrow face slowly craned itself round to meet my own, and by the time I was a few feet away we were staring into each other. My eyes unblinking and wet. His bloodshot and hollow. Shells lay beside him. His mouth shut tight.

"Hello." I finally said. I tried to recall if I'd ever heard him speak, but then as he began to carve, I realized that this was just as it had happened before, only now I noticed the agony in those hollow eyes and something else - anticipation? His boney fingers locked the shell between them. The precision that he'd displayed on our first encounter, with the turtle that he'd crafted, was replaced with something brutal. If his previous technique was that of surgical skill, then this was savagery - the transformation sickening.

I looked around; to the sunbathing holidaymakers I was just a distant figure in a pale towel bending down to speak to a malnourished local craftsman. I noticed the eggs from the night before all empty, little baby footprints in the sand towards the open water. I followed the clusters of eggs right up to where I stood. The ones around me were cracked open, just like the others, but there were no little footprints nearby. None.

Then I saw the turtle shells. As empty as the eggs. They surrounded him.

I felt dizzy from the heat.

He looked up at me. His palm open with the carving of a carcass. I grabbed hold of him, his skin was rough as ruins. "Did you -?!" but before I could finish his mouth opened and all I saw were shells in an abyss. Then blackness. I fought to break free. Pushing and pushing and then relief. I climbed out and onto the sand. I struggled to see the moon, but I could hear the ocean calling. I started to move, but then - I'm weightless, as if ascending to the stars, but no, as I turn, I turn to meet his face. I'm ripped apart, ripped open - consumed. Blackness. I feel as if I'm falling backwards, endlessly back. I see the sand and the sea. The days and the nights blur into each other. People walking past, their costumes changing, the times changing and then - a ship on the horizon. I cry out in fear. Don't leave me here, a boy's voice says. Mama please don't leave me! I watch the ship disappear into the beyond and all I feel now is a hunger. I pick up a shell. I pick up my tool, and I carve. I carve hungrily. I carve and I wait.

I look up and I see a woman in a towel. I recognize her towel. I try to speak but she shakes her head. My head? Her husband is there now beside her, his arm around her, he's leading her away. Her mouth stays shut tight, her eyes hollow, and I watch her walk away, me walk away, and I realize that it wasn't too late for my body to bring another life into this world after all.