Scallops
By Sarp Sozdinler
November 15, 2024
November 15, 2024
Let’s imagine us sitting on the beach and taking pictures of our feet, some dried patches of sand defiling the creaminess of your skin, me cleaning after your mess as always, dutifully watering your toes and smoothing the sandy ground until you decide to ruin it like everything else you touch. Let’s imagine me starting all over again until my feet turn all pink and calloused like scallops, my toenails parched with red paint and saltwater, my eyes tracing these pebbles lined along the beach, this archipelago of distances that looks so symbolic of something, all while a black plastic bag is drifting along where the waves furiously beat the sand, dancing in a wind neither of us can feel, moving under a sun that glares at us like a curious peep wishing 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 seem to know, like planting this umbrella in the sand or making sure your sunscreen touches every nook and cranny of your saggy skin, me pretending to not hear anything you say, to not care that your sentences casually switching from plural to singular every few seconds, all while watching you dabble with whatever it is you do to feel satisfied and manly again. Let’s imagine us eyeing each other for a while like some edgy cowboys in a spaghetti flick and trying to figure out who would crack first, the sun not interested in our drama anymore and leaving our field of vision at will, me still trying to make sense of this pattern of pebbles in the sand to occupy my mind with something other than you while you squirm in your chair like a beached whale and turn over to look at me with an expression I cannot at once decipher.
Let’s imagine it being the first time I tell you to stop as if it were ever enough, you not getting what I’m telling you at first and just thinking that I’m joking when in fact I’m not, at least not this time, which I try to make known with the dullest, deadliest glare I can produce, saying 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 whatever it is you’ve been dealing with anyway, but I don’t care which is which so long as you stop for real and ask me what I mean by it all, all while peering down at my body, my sandy feet, my suntanned legs, my lonesome being. Let’s imagine me starting to feel embarrassed about the whole thing and pointing at this pattern in the sand, steering your attention toward this perpendicular trail of pebbles that separates your beach chair from mine like a border, only too literally, as if to keep us from dealing with any kind of personal boundaries anymore.
Let’s imagine you hearing me out for once and looking at where I’m looking, at these pebbles in the sand that looks only like some 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 while me being me and taking it all as it comes, with grays and negative spaces 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 the intended ears, all while I point at the sand and tell 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 saying that it’s all very pretty, then asking me when we should go grab some dinner, to which I say you’re free to do whatever the hell you want but cross over to my side of the sand and that’s when you look down at these pebbles as if it’s the first time you’re seeing them, your face turning all too serious all of a sudden, eyes deadpan, lips curled, 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 me-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 all a lie, one that we both built, without pain, without regrets, without the faintest care in the world as if we were but 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 that you had a life and I had a life, and our opinion of each other not having hit rock bottom, our looks not having paled against the test of time, you not spotting me on the side of the road in the first place, me not deciding to move to a new country with you, most certainly not to this middle of nowhere, our baby not being born shortly after and having slipped away the way he did, our home not having burned to its pieces.
Let’s imagine us forgetting about it all for once and getting a good night’s sleep.
Let’s imagine us dreaming.
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Sarp Sozdinler’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Fractured Lit, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected and nominated for anthologies, including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. He’s currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam. Find him online at sarpsozdinler.com / @sarpsozdinler (across all social media platforms).
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Author’s Note:
“Scallops” is a rather personal story based on a parable my mother used to read to me as a kid. When I decided to use this memory as a starting point for my story, I opted not to reread the whole thing but rework it from my memory instead. In the end, I suspect my piece has differed to a great extent from the original story, but the version that lived in my mind was the version I was interested in. After weeks of editing and re-editing, my memory of the original story has metastasized into something new every day, to an extent I couldn’t tell anymore what parts of it pertained to my lived experience and what parts were pure figment of my imagination, a “true” piece of fiction by all means.