In all directions the steaming mercury water lay still, across the whole wide world.
The boy in pyjamas, ankle deep and holding Mr Tedda by one threadbare foot, knew this. He turned across the horizon, and with a surge of adrenalin, felt the sand between his toes settle. He almost lost his balance to think of it--of how far this sandbank reached, and how far the depth below went. It was like vertigo, but worse, because you couldn't see it, but you could feel it.
The wind picked up and cooled the water soaked fabric upon his calves. The wind pushed dimples of downdraught over the water. There was a clear blue canopy and it was cold, but the most disturbing thing was the silence.
"Jay!"
Jay turned to see a flock of Seagulls slosh into the sky with a cold spray of salt water and bird smell. Regaining control of his balance (but not his beating heart) he saw one remaining unconcerned gull, bobbing in the water, looking this way and that with rapidly piercing flicks of its beak.
"Jay!" It looked at him side on.
Jay, too startled to swallow, suddenly became aware of just how thirsty he was. A wave of panic swept in as the gull swam closer. And then came the violins.
"Gloria!"
A song he'd heard his dad listening to on classic FM in the living room of their small open plan apartment.
"Gloria!"
The gull swam closer.
"Gloria! Gloria! In excelsis Deo!"
Silence.
"Silence! Silence! Leave the boy alone!"
Jay turned to the sloshing sound of an old man cutting his way viciously through the water. He was wearing tall gumboots, oversized brown corduroy pants, and a green velvet jacket. His tussled, grey hair swam in the breeze and his angry eyebrows made Jay freeze once more in the headlights of a new pair of eyes.
"What are you doing out here?" The old man stood with his fists upon his hips thrust forward, looking around impatiently. "Where's you parents? And what are you... Are those pyjamas?"
"I--"
"--You're dreaming. Aren't you."
A strange feeling seemed to open Jay up. This had happened before--he thought.
"Feel weird, right?" the man said, leaning forward, his head blocking out the sun as he went. "And now you can do anything you want." He sighed and put his hands in his pockets and kicked a splash at nothing in particular.
"I have, I think. I've dreamed like this before. Lucid dreams! I'm lucid dreaming!"
"Lucky for some." The man hissed. "Where have I heard it before? Ah yes! I was reading you Through the Looking-Glass, was it!"
Jay looked at the man more closely. That voice--it was different--and his face looked different too, like it wasn't really him. "Is that you, Gramps?"
'Gramps' shook his head. "Unfortunately not. Like in Through the Looking-Glass--what was it the two Tweedles said?" Gramps scratched his sandpaper chin. "Something like, you waking up, and me going out like a--"
"Candle," said Jay, remembering the story. "Going out like a candle." The sick feeling returned. He hated that part of the story. He remembered it as a bad dream--the possibility that Alice was nothing but a puff of thought.
"Gloria!"
With one swift kick and a stray feather, the gull went flapping and the music stopped again. "I said SILENCE!" The gull recovered itself, but made no attempt to fly away. Instead it drifted and spun, as if making up its mind about something, before proceeding to circle two of them looking deeply unimpressed. "Never mind that little bugger. What are you doing out here?"
"You just said I was dreaming." Gramps scratched his head and mumbled something, turned around, head down, and shuffled back toward the horizon. "WAIT!"
Gramps turned around as Jay flew into his arms. "Oh never mind me," Gramps grumbled, "my memory."
"I remember. You were sick--are sick? You forgot things."
"Yes." Gramps wiped a tear from his eye before the boy could notice.
"You forgot, and we--you're staying with us. In the Kitchen!"
"In the kitchen?" Gramps grunted as he picked up Jay. "Why should I be sleeping in the kitchen?"
"Not the kitchen--the bit further back," Jay tried to remember but it was like trying to remember a dream. "In the living room. We cleared the tv away, and--"
Gramps smacked his lips as he, too, tried to remember. "I'm so thirsty," he said. "Do you have any water?"
"Water, water everywhere--"
"But not a drop to drink!" finished Gramps and smiled, wiping another tear from his eye. "You remember that?"
"The mariner--something?" A book his father had read him or something.
"Yes... Or something."
"But you..." Jay tried to remember, but he was so thirsty, and Gramps was so thirsty, wait, that couldn't be right. It's like he could feel them both in a strange way. And so it must be, Gramps is in my dream. He is me!
"Oh Jayden."
"And you forgot," Jay remembered. "Forgot something else... We had you in the living room, so we could see you when we ate at dinner, and we could talk with you and do the crossword... You were on a special bed. You forgot."
"I forgot--"
"You forgot how to swallow Gramps! How weird is that?"
"So thirsty."
"We had to swab your mouth with wet cotton wool, and you were fading... fading...."
Jay vanished as quickly as the flame of a candle being blown out. Gramps fell to his knees and sobbed. "My dream. This hell. I'm so thirsty." He cried. "Don't go. Jay!" He was weak. His heart was beating out of his chest. He felt the pain below the morphine drip.
The gull returned and swam about his feet squawking and pecking at his leg.
"Go on," Gramps said, and the music struck back up--Gloria in Excelsis Deo by Antonio Vivaldi. He smiled and knew his son must be playing it in the living room where he lay on that hospital bed they'd somehow managed to drag into the apartment for him. Jay would be at school, but... Gramps looked at his hand, and was sure his son must be holding it.
It was time.
He lay down and the water cupped his face as he floated. He closed his eyes and pushed himself from the sandbank, and over the great dark unknown.