VOAT - The Sea! The Sea! Read & Vote

So it’s a short story you’re after, I’ll give you a — BANG — short story. That’s the sound your boy’s cheek bone makes when it splinters into a hundred pieces. I found him just walking home from the cinema, with his girl, she’s run off now. Good looking wee biddy, but she didn’t hang around when I busted your boy’s knee with a wheel brace — BANG — that’s the wheel brace now; I always carry it around, it hooks inside my track suit bottoms, dead handy. Jesus! He’s bleeding all over the place. Bit of a bleeder your boy, screamer too I’ll bet but he won’t get a scream out when I’m at him, every time he opens his mouth — BANG — just like that, he gets the wheel brace.

Now let’s see. What are we doing, he seems pretty much under control, squirmin’ around like a foetus – BANG - there you go, there’s one for luck, right on the spine. Always like to give the spine a good a crack, nice bit of long term damage to be goin’ on with. He can’t breath, he’s snortin’ like a horse, ha that’s funny, that’s funny that is. So what’s next, I could rob the f**ker he’s gonna have twenty quid on him for sure, but it’s really more about the fight you see, it’s good to get a good oul work out on one of these dickheads, not too big, not too small, well dressed, nice bird, out havin’ a nice time! Lets drag him up this entry here, that’s it face down get a good bit facial scarring into the bargain, lovely job – BANG - boot that time, f**k up you noncey bastard, think I know what your snivelling about?

So it’s ‘Why?” is it? “Why would I?” and “How?” as well. “How” in your whiney “trying-to-understand” voice. Why do you do this? Why do you do that? And how could you be so cruel! What’s cruel love? Beatin’ some nonce with a wheel brace is cruel is it? Draggin’ him up an alley and trampin’ his face in not to your taste, is it? Well here it is: why the f**k wouldn’t i? I took a beaten like this every week from before I can remember, I don’t know what cruel is, you wanker, because I don’t have anything to compare it to! It’s not that hard to understand, (BANG- stop with the groaning pretty boy, someone’s gonna hear us) that’s all there is to it, you don’t need to get the shrinks in, any f**kin’ monkey could work it out. Walk down the corridor f**kwit, call into any cell and ask them what “hurt” is, ask them what the word “violence” means, ask what are Daddies for, what are Mammies for, ask them what does it feel like when someone cares for you, ask them what is it like to care for someone.

You’ll get some pretty f**kin’ short answers, cause it’s a pretty short story, all in.

And don’t think they’re makin’ it up, they’ve put their time in with everyone from the Samaritan visitors to the God Squad, the Nurses, Doctors and Counsellors the €500/hr Psychiatrist all trying to stretch out the oldest and simplest rule in human nature, give him nothin’ but **** all his life and you you’ll get it all right back again with interest. When you’re talking to one of them one on one, they’re not makin’ it up, they’ve nothin’ to prove, they’ve been through it all with the white coats and it means less than nothing to them, it’s the way it is, that’s it.

I can’t read hardly, I can’t write, I can’t even talk right. When I was 3, the social workers took me away because I was found in my cot with maggots in my nappy. Apparently I wasn’t crying when I was found like that, I didn’t give a f**k. Do you know why I didn’t give a f**k, cause that’s all I knew. Those f**kin’ maggots could have ate my legs off and for all I knew that was what my legs were there for in the first place, and you know those first 3 years were actually the most stable of my life, I’ve never had regular contact with the same people or lived in the same house for that long since. Do you or will you ever get that? Get what that kind of treatment creates?

Jesus! This f**ker’s gonna die on me. Ah f**k him, f**kin’ Mammy’s boy, f**k he can bleed. And that’s it really, that’s all for tonight, I was right, he did have twenty quid on him, twenty pounds and thirty pence to be exact. I think he actually has copped it you know, well there you go, all in a good cause, just shows you how good I am eh. And speakin’ of being good, here’s a thought, when you’re rushin’ around livin’ your good life, workin’ and bringing up your squeaky clean kids here’s a thought to be goin’ on with; I’m out there. I’m on your planet. Down your street. In your field. I’m even on your beach, and sooner or later I will get you, or yours. And you can live the good life all you want and look down your nose at me at every corner I’m on; the corner where there’s nowhere to play; in the school without the funding for my special needs teacher; in the hostel were no one wants to work and no one comes to visit; I’m everywhere you don’t want to see, I’m right there, soaking up the disgust you have for me.

Fifteen weeks since I saw the sea. It was the longest time in my life away from the water. I kicked off my sandals and walked to the edge of the water. It hit my toes and then my ankles, cold refreshing and cleansing. Little pebbles and shells eddied around the sudden obstruction but a few steps took me past them to knee depth. I was back in my natural environment at last.


Anyone born within sight of the sea is never settled away from it. They say we have salt water in our veins. That is silly. Everyone has salt water in their veins. You couldn’t live without it. I read somewhere that the concentration on salt in our bodies is exactly the same as in sea water. It is one of the proofs that all life started in the oceans. I don’t know if that is true but I do know that being away from the sea was the hardest part of my lockdown. Others missed shops, pubs or hairdressers. I missed the beach.


After living within 2 km and then 5 km of home I now had a full county to travel in and one with hundreds of miles of coastline. If I was never allowed to go any further I didn’t mind. I had all I needed in my own county. How I pitied the inhabitants of Carlow and Tipperary. They had lakes and rivers but it isn’t the same as the sea.


Every chance I got I was at the beach. I found new ones but usually ended up at the old favourites, the ones within walking distance of my childhood home. There I watched children dig holes, make dams and divert water into moats around their sandcastles. They were the same as we were a generation or two ago. These children of the smart phone era are still fascinated by seeing how water will find its own level. They may be distraught at the destruction wrought by the incoming tide but the next day they are back at the same spot, the holes dug deeper and the mounds built higher.


They shun adult help. It needs delicate hands to get the desired shape. Buckets and spades are often discarded in favour of direct contact with the sand and stones. Their parents hovered around, snapping from every angle. Each creation gets displayed on Snapchat or Instagram.


I don’t think there is a single photo of the multitude of sandcastles we built. In those days, cameras were too precious to take to the beach where they might be damaged by the same sand and water needed for our craftwork. It doesn’t matter. I can still see everyone. I see the single, perfect sandcastle produced when every single grain of sand, compressed to exactly the right degree, emptied from the bucket. I see the more elaborate structures with pebbled driveways to multi-turreted fortresses. I see the dams that lasted until the next heavy rain, engineering masterpieces that involved whole squads of kids working in harmony most of the time.


There are no pictures, except in my mind. There I can not only see but feel and smell every one.

pixelburp wrote: »

edit: I wonder should this be a sticky? I have a thing against them, believe that they're missed by users half the time *shrug*

Good point. Unstuck

Congratulations echo beach!

I think that’s the first time a piece of creative non-fiction won a VOAT. It’s a fantastic story.

I wrote #2 about the paddle boarders who were rescued off Aran during the summer. It was interesting to get feedback, as I probably assumed everyone would know the story.