Drowning in Daylight

There's an abrupt metallic flash. A green road sign with yellow writing.

"KORTRIK"

Then black again.

'Please don't stop."

I can feel Petra's eyes on me in the next burst of peach.
'I don't think I can face an empty apartment tonight,' I tell her. 'Not after that argument.'

Silence.

'Where do you want to go?'

'I don't know.'

Petra must be in a susceptibly sympathetic mood for as we approach the turn-off for the city she squeezes down on the accelerator. A great surge of power flows through the battered Mercedes and the off-ramp is suddenly behind us.
I slip down further into my seat, down into the greatcoat that's a size too large. Despite the tepid air wheezing from the heater the car remains uncomfortably cold. Rainwater freezes into thin white blades on the windscreen wipers. Fragments of melted snow lie fastened to the bonnet like molten limpets.

Further up the road we encounter an enormous lump of fog that looks as thick as porridge. In the gleam of foglamps we slide though yellow tendrils of mist floating in the air around us like the ghosts of dead jellyfish.

We drive for almost an hour without speaking. Petra twists the knobs of the radio for several seconds and is finally rewarded with a burst of classical music. The signal is weak, however, and within seconds it has faded away, dissolved in a stream of indecipherable static. We lose 'Moonlight Sonata' several kilometres east of Contrains. Shortly after, we hit the Belgian coast.

Petra slips the car out of gear and we freewheel down a narrow track to the beach. Gravel crunches beneath the tyres as we pull off the road. When we pull to a halt I undo the safety belt and step out to walk away from the car. No more than a few metres down the beach. It's so dark it's almost impossible to see.

I find a rock that's large enough to sit on and settle down to stare out towards the Channel. Unable to see the waves, I listen to them, enjoying the frothy gush as they surge up the beach and rattle the stones together with a sound like crackling bones.

Up by the Mercedes I hear the creak of the driver's door. There's a rustle of clothing, the click of a lighter and Petra's face is illuminated in a small yellow flame. It flickers out, replaced by a red cigarette tip that glows in the night like an ember in the ashes.

I move away. Further into the darkness where light cannot touch me.

I start to release the ache then. On my knees, in the sand. In small, deep breaths. There is no pain worse than the ending of love, no sense of loneliness so acute. No sense of despair so all consuming. The end of love slashes your soul with a serrated edge. It chops up emotions with liquid, wicked relish and uses them for salad dressing.

Petra sits up on the bonnet of the car and smokes a cigarette and waits. Her outline is a dim silhouette against the first grey light of dawn. After a while she finishes her cigarette, stares down at the beach, then returns to sit inside the battered Mercedes.

It's at such times that I am glad of such a friend. Petra understands that my pain is private, that I ease bad lovers out of my life in long, soft silences. That's the most beautiful thing about friends. You can share things with friends you would never share with lovers.

Unlike me, Petra hides her pain deep inside and out of sight. I've seen her contain it for months on end until one day it finally erupts and I have to restrain her as she screams and kicks and expels her love in drunken vicious bursts. She physically expels it, churning the hurt out of her heart and onto the greasy cobblestones of Belgium.

In the end it doesn't really matter. We both share the same pain and that makes us equal.

Dawn is heaving in around the coast and, somehow, I know it's going to be a beautiful day just when I need it most. A day of emerald seas and pure white waves, a day of gleaming sunshine and children's laughter.

Beneath skies of sheer blue silk we find strength to draw back from the brink of the abyss. Our fears drown with the coming of dawn, floundering on the beach like a fish deserted by the tide.

Back up on the foreshore I find Petra asleep in the driver's seat looking so peaceful that for several minutes I don't have the heart to disturb her. Instead I sit on the bonnet of her car and smoke. Later, perhaps, I'll touch her on the shoulder and whisper 'Everything's all right. We can go home now.'

Biography

Brian O'Sullivan was born in Cork in 1965 and has travelled extensively since leaving Ireland in 1987. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines including JAAM, Takahe, and Carve Magazine. He currently lives in Wellington, New Zealand, where he is completing his first
novel.