"Scallops" by Sarp Sozdinler
Let’s imagine us sitting on a beach and taking pictures of our feet, your flip-flops stuck in the sand, dried patches defiling the creaminess of your skin, me tidying up your mess as always, dutifully watering your toes and smoothing the ground with my heels until you decide to ruin it like everything else you touch. Let’s imagine me starting all over again until my feet turn pink and calloused like scallops, my toenails parched with red paint and saltwater, my eyes tracing these pebbles in the sand, this archipelago of distances that looks so symbolic of something I fail to place, while a black plastic bag is drifting along where the waves furiously meet the sand, dancing in a wind we cannot feel, and the sun moving about the purple sky like a curious peep who wishes to be invited into this bad air between you and me. Let’s imagine you for a change, distracted again with something so trivial yet important for some reason you and only you know, like planting this umbrella in the sand or making sure the sunscreen touches every nook and cranny of your saggy skin, me not caring about your sentences switching from plural to singular every few seconds and pretending to not hear anything you say while you’re struggling with whatever you choose to struggle with to feel satisfied and manly again. Let’s imagine us eyeing each other’s reactions and trying to figure out who would crack first like some edgy cowboys in a Spaghetti flick, the sun not interested in our drama anymore and leaving our sight toward where suns would retreat, me trying to make sense of the pattern of sand to occupy my mind with something else while you squirm in your chair like a beached whale and then turn over to straighten up. Let’s imagine it being the first time I tell you to stop as if it were ever enough, you not understanding what I’m going on about at first and figuring I’m joking when in fact I’m not, which I try to make known with the dullest, deadliest scowl I can produce, repeating that you have to stop, stop, stop, until you say, But why? to which I reply, Just don’t move, all right? Let’s imagine whether by a miracle or a cosmic joke you actually stop, or simply lose interest in what you were up to anyway, but I don’t care which unless you stop for real and ask me what I mean by it all, peering with one eye at my body, my sandy feet, my suntanned legs, my untouched breasts, my lonesome being. Let’s imagine me starting to feel a bit embarrassed about the whole thing and pointing at the sand to deflect your attention, at this perpendicular trail of pebbles separating your beach chair from mine, only too literally, as if to keep us from dealing with any invisible boundaries anymore. Let’s imagine you looking at where I’m looking, at these pebbles in the sand that looks only like pebbles in the sand to you when it means so much more, at least to me, but isn’t it how it’s always been, not necessarily between you and me but with the ways we choose to deal with life separately, you being you and finding comfort in putting a tag on everything you can while me being me and taking it all as it comes, with grays and nuances involved, a whole spectrum of a life yet not lived? Let’s imagine me setting us in our right places this time and you asking what’s going on and me saying, Don’t move, like once, twice, three times—no, shouting it, yelling it, screaming it until I make sure my words reach their destination as I keep pointing at the line in the sand with probably a glare in my eyes and telling you to stay very still, to not move, to not take one step further, at least not in my direction. Let’s imagine you making fun of it as always and remarking that it’s all very pretty and asking me when we should go get some dinner, to which I say you’re free to do whatever you want but cross over to my side of the sand and that’s when you look down at the pebbles as if it’s the first time you’re seeing them, your face turning serious all of a sudden, eyes deadpan, and asking me with the stingiest voice I’ve heard if this is all a joke. Let’s imagine me saying no for a change and insisting that I’m being very serious indeed, and you telling me to stop being unreasonable for once when all I’ve been doing is being me and not wanting the same thing as you, not behaving the way you would have liked me to behave, not looking at you in that particular way you’d like your women to look at their man, when we both know that it’s a lie, one that we both built, without pain, without regrets, without a care in the world as if we were a couple of gods who chose to settle on Earth when all that we’ve ever really been to each other are mortal friends. Let’s imagine us scrambling the sand and pretending none of it has ever happened and you having a life and me having a life, and our opinion of each other not having hit rock bottom, our looks not having faded, your once-shoulder-length curls not having receded to a horseshoe hairline, my gums not having recessed to the point of dread, you not spotting me at that library in the first place, me not moving to the middle of nowhere with you, our baby not being born and having slipped away the way he did. Let’s imagine us forgetting about it all for once and getting a good night’s sleep. Let’s imagine us dreaming. •
Sarp Sozdinler (he/they) is a writer based between New York and Amsterdam. His writing has been featured or is forthcoming on The Masters Review, HAD, X-R-A-Y, No Contact, Passages North, The Offing, Moonpark Review, and elsewhere. Some of his longer pieces have been selected as a finalist at literary contests, including the Waasnode Short Fiction Prize judged by Jonathan Escoffery. He is perpetually at work on his first novel.
