“Track Eight:” Ghosts on the Boardwalk
“Oh, you say you're lonely… pulled away by the tide and lost at sea.
… All you sense is something so heavy… that you can't breathe.”
There was a voice, warm but bleak, swelling in my brain like rain through a storm grate. It caused, or at least I think it caused, the thumping that was hammering my chest. It was so loud it made me nervous, the voice would fade, and the thumping would rise up in its place. I could hear its echo in my eardrums, and it was starting to throb at the base of my skull. There was something else too, another pain, there was something pulling at my feet. I was desperately trying to identify it, but I couldn’t see a thing.
See. Why can’t I see anything?
I tell myself to open my eyes, and the command seems to work, but I have no sight to take anything in. There is only a sea of nothing to envelop me, turning me back to visions of storm grates flooded with water, insistently pushing its way through the slats.
Those words return. Then the thumping in my chest resurfaces, alternating in perfect time with a stabbing pain that has moved from my feet all the way up to my lungs. There is nothing but that voice, in a place I can’t identify, and a limb I can’t seem to see that tugs at me from somewhere below.
“Pulled away by the tide…”
Warm but bleak, it’s starting to sooth me with its rhythm. The words rolling in like waves.
“All you sense is something so heavy…”
I commanded myself to open my eyes, I feel the sensation of my heavy lids rolling up over my eyes but there is still nothing. I close my eyes, though it makes no difference, other than to grant me what feels like rest while I rack my swollen brain for what led me here.
I began my day in the sun, when everything was hot, almost to the point of being uncomfortable, actually. That’s why I rode my bike down to the boardwalk. Because the hot black seats in my car would never have cooled on the short jaunt to the pier. Plus, parking was always a nightmare. And who wants to spend their time dealing with that on such a perfect sunny day like today?
I locked my bike up on the racks when I arrived. I thought it’d be more crowded, to be honest. A sunny Saturday in June, no fog or gloom had been seen hanging over the cost for days. Perhaps beachgoers were taking it for granted. But that’s the thing with the sunny days in June; it’s not guaranteed to shine for long.
I bought myself a frozen lemonade from the first stand I saw. I scraped at the yellow citrus ice with the provided wooden spoon. I wanted something to keep me cool that I could take my time with while I let my feet navigate the crowds and the weathered, nailed down slats along the boardwalk. I hated those spoons. They always made me think of doctors’ offices and tongue depressors. The lemonade slush tasted good, washing away the medicinal smell of an exam room that the wooden stick brought back with each scrape around the inside edge of the cup.
I can get lost in tasks easily, losing focus on the world around me. So it was nice to walk around, easily avoiding other people on the boardwalk. In fact, this stretch of beach hasn’t seen a qualified ‘crowd’ in years. Once locals go missing, the rumors start to scare away the families. Next come the pretty girls who just want to be seen. And once the girls’ go- so does the hordes of hormonal boys.
And so goes the crowds.
Yet parking’s still a nightmare. Beach communities, they really can be the worst.
I was scraping away the frozen slush, halfway into my cup, when a busker playing near the pier caught my ear with her song.
“Oh, you say you're lonely… pulled away by the tide and lost at sea.”
I quite liked her song. It sounded sunny like the day, even if her words made me a little sad. I peeked into her guitar case, scattered with quarters and a crumpled bill or two. I tossed in a few crisp dollars, and she nodded in thanks, still playing her song. I waited for what seemed like a very long time, surely she should have played a different song by now? But no, the same one continued. They say this beach is haunted now, on account of those missing locals. Someone should remind the busker of that. I don't know how she could forget; their flyers still paper the posts up and down the beach. The poor little boy in the red cap, and the nice-looking man in the yellow collared shirt, both tacked up right alongside the young woman in the flower dress. Their flyers were in tatters now, but they still clung to the nails in the posts. And still, this girl plays this repetitive song about the loneliness of the sea.
No wonder the crowds have been driven away.
I could still hear her song as I wandered toward the trashcan at the start of the pier. I hadn’t planned on going this far down the boardwalk on this hot of a day, but the breeze blew much cooler now over the water and it looked almost foggy at the pier’s end. The coolness felt nice on the pink of my skin. With each bench I passed, it seemed to chill me more, inviting me to take another step, then another, and another. The gloom of June can come on quite suddenly and the drop in temperature was welcomed, even at the cost of the loss of a perfect sunny day.
Before I knew it, there were no more benches to pass, only a swirl of fog at the end of the pier to greet my over-heated flesh.
I peered out into the fog, listening for the waves. That was my favorite thing about coming to the boardwalk; the sound of water lapping at the posts beneath my feet. The breeze blew cold, so surely there should be a wave or two rolling beneath the pier. But today, nothing.
There was no sound, as if there was no sea.
I couldn’t see a thing through the fog, though I’m sure my eyes were wide open. I leaned over the edge of the wooden railing, pressing my ear down further through the fog, stretching to hear something… to hear anything at all besides that song.
“Pulled away by the tide and lost at sea…”
I still can’t see, back in the sea of nothing that I cannot place. My arms and legs were cold, but something about that voice and my memory of that sunny day felt so far away it made my insides turn to ice. I tried to move away from that sound, but it just kept echoing softly in my ears.
And now I can’t remember.
Did I turn around in the fog? Walk back down to the edge of the pier? I must have, that girl is still playing her song.
“… All you sense is something so heavy… that you can't breathe.”
Then, sunlight.
My arms and legs were still cold, but I could feel warmth spreading across my back. Then half the sea poured out of my lungs.
A crowd of faces sighed with relief around me as I expelled another salty wave of water from my insides. I took in the sea of faces staring up at me, blurred from the shadows from staring up at the sun behind them. I couldn’t make them out, but oh the relief of opening my eyes and seeing something- anything!
I looked over the front of myself, covered in damp salty water. I was always quite pale, but my arms were white as bone, so white the edges radiated with cold blue outlines.
But I was so warm… I closed my eyes as the bystanders raised me to my feet, soaking in the warmth of the sun. They were so gentle and kind, these caring folks. So gentle, in fact, it felt as though I just floated to my feet.
My eyes adjusted to the sun and the view of the boardwalk flooded my senses. My chest began to thump again. I had been so relieved to see the sun I disregarded their contorted faces looking over me, their ragged clothes stained with saltwater… A boy in a red cap, a man in a yellow polo… a woman in a flower dress.
Now I knew what was coming next, and though I tried to plug my ears the hands of the others wouldn’t let me. Then that warm, bleak voice, swelled in my ears again as the others lead me down the pier alongside them.
“Let me take you to a place where the sun warms your face… and the sound of the waves takes you away… And the ghosts on the boardwalk keep you company, where the city meets the sea.”