20 Minute Story (No. 1)

For the last several months I have been experimenting with the 20 minute story. I sit and write uninterupted for 20 minutes (more or less) without editing or thinking too much. Most of them are fairly worthless, and perhaps this one is too. I wrote it a couple months ago and had forgotten it until I reread it tonight. Make of it what you will, I suppose....

She dug her feet into the sand gently. The water rushed up over her toes, her ankles, but then stopped there before rushing back out again. It’s funny how a wave seems to hesitate like that – and it’s an immeasurable amount of time, that moment when the water stops before rushing away like a blushing girl. How long did it stop for this time, she wondered? A second? One third of a second? It didn’t stop long enough.

The water was warmer because the air was cooler, but now the thrill of water’s tickle-kiss was fading.

He should have met her there at least twenty minutes ago now, and soon those tiny lines the moonlight made on the ocean’s rippling surface would glow less bright as the moon continued to recede. They only had two days left, and already she got the feeling that he was growing tired of her.

(His hand reached across the bar’s surface to rescue the falling strands of hair that were about to make their way into her cocktail, and when she looked up she didn’t look away.)

She was not often on beaches when there was no one else around. She was not often on beaches. Most things move too quickly, but she likes how quickly things move until she hesitates for that brief moment – the moment before rushing back out again – and she wonders if she’ll ever rush back out again.

She was not often on beaches when no one else was around. She was not often on beaches. Especially at night. The sand keeps its moisture at night and the night smelled like dewy flowers, which would have seemed right if he would ever show up, but she was nearly convinced that he would not. She heard leaves brush and the crackle of a few branches but did not turn her head. It could not be him, and even if it was, a rushed flip of the head, a flyaway strand of hair would be all too expected.

And it was him. It seemed so artificial. So contrived, he thought. The air smelled of dewy flowers and the moon sparkled on the water. He did not like such things. They bothered him because he had read it before in a book that he didn’t even enjoy or in a magazine at the dentist’s office. So he stood there watching her for a moment in silence wondering whether he should give up the proposition all together.

Without turning her head – knowing he was there – she spoke:

“Did you bring it?”

“I did.”

“Good.”

He approached her slowly and sat down next her, opening the case carefully, and pulling out the small guitar as though it were a child.

“What is it tonight?” She asked. “New or Old”

“New. It doesn’t even exist yet – the song. I thought tonight that I would just play and you can tell me stop when the song is over.”

“Why didn’t you write it first?”

He didn’t answer. He tuned a few of the strings and then began to play. With a song that already existed, she would say Yes or No within the first few moments of his tune and immediately those to which she said No were crumpled and thrown into the ocean or made to vanish into thin air. But with a song that didn’t exist, she wasn’t quite sure how she would be able to perform her service correctly. Her service was to say yes or no to songs, but if a song didn’t exist, what was she saying yes or no to?

She stared down at her feet as the water came up to meet the bottom of her flexed foot. With its contact he struck his first chord – minor. Fast and bitter sad. The wave rushed back out like a blushing girl and the chord broke into the million tiny pieces – the wave crackling and foaming as it sunk into the sand, the musician boy leaning over his small guitar with his eyes closed and his mouth torn into a sideways wandering grimace.

Was it Yes or No. Yes or No? She thought of Yes or No. Yes! or No! it wasn’t so calypso as it was a rage or rush of something else. It subsided and brewed off shore for a moment as it rolled into itself. And he lay his chin into his chest.

(I’m going to help you, she had said to him the moment she met him. I will help you I will help you I will help you.)

He could play whatever she wanted to hear now and he knew it. A week of these nights. Nights on beaches and nights on park benches and nights in her hotel room, and he could play whatever she wanted to hear. And was that all she wanted?

“No.” She said. But this time he did not stop. There was no paper to crumple up and throw into the ocean.

She knew that he could play exactly what she wanted to hear, and that he would no longer come to her, and for that reason she wanted to hear no more of what he played. She wanted those hands to stop plucking those strings. They seemed tied to her somewhere.

The wave pulled up over the sand but did not meet her this time. It stopped just before the end of her toe, and she reached out to meet it but couldn’t.

He shook his head and laughed but did not stop playing. Soft trembling things now. Soft and trembling murmuring, but angry and sarcastic things. She stood up. The music stopped. He grabbed her skirt.

“Wait” he said. “No wait!”

Walking down the beach and not stopping, he lay down his guitar and walked just behind her until the nearness of him made her stop.

“I cannot help you.” She said just above whispering. “I cannot help you I cannot help you I cannot.”

And as she said the words he could not bear the thought of them being true. And his heart leapt in his chest.
She dug her toes down into the cool damp sand and tried to keep herself from rushing back into the rush. She dug her toes down into the sand, and breathed a deep shuddering breath. How long could she stop this time? A second? A third of a second? Not long enough.