An opening extract from Lucien Ross’s novella, The Little Sea.
Not crack-stepping step into bathroom. Toilet seat is cold. Pink flowers were growing on the cactus by the window.
There is water in the toilet and also a wee but no number twos in the toilet but there was a lot of blood right now and there was a little bit of leg blood too and then the little girl remembered she wasn’t allowed to lock the door anymore.
drip
Hadn’t noticed I was Booking-It again. Noticing. Thinking about Booking-It. Thinking about thinking about Booking-It. Becoming realer when I’m Booking-It. Get Inside-Words. Getting out of being too Now. Too blood-looking. Sit.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
handle- glass- rattle- shake- door- noise
Some banging but not for a very long time. She thought she must have been on the floor for a very long time. Some cross-not-cross Dad voice.
lock-snap-door-break-sound
The little girl pretended to be asleep but it was lying and she Book-lied the blood too. Bad for lying and watching from the ceiling and then Dad wrapped me in a towel and the towel was crunchy and smelled like a prawn. Dad sings me. Shh jumbles me nowly makes roughsoft towl shouldering. Dad.
Shh shh shh. It’s okay. Back you come.
Holding me. Okaying it. Singing it something away. Corridor darkly. Spider house sometimes. Mum head-on-wall sadding-shouts in the phone.
Ambulance! Jesus. Am–byew–lance. Are you deaf?
Dad is warm. Sings me wholer. See blood-foot. Not lie. Got to make it a lie.
~ Here comes the ocean ~
~ and the waves ~
~ down by the sea ~
~ where have they been? ~
Door noise
Shifty shoulder.
Here we go.
~ Don’t swim tonight my love~
~ the sea is mad my love. ~
Latch whiting Dad’s thumb nail. Big push Dad and jiggle us.
Door noise
Dad shutting to secret the Mum phone.
~ Here come the waves ~
~ down by the shore ~
~ washing the rocks ~
~ who wait ~
~ centuries or more. ~
Dad towels me so squashidly-up. Baby-wrapped. Been bean shaped. Knee-chin-knee. Been arms hid.
~ Down by the sea. ~
~ Let’s watch teevee. ~
~ The red remote ~
~ was under me. ~
Dad singing the happening-now. Like my Inside-Booking-It. Songing Outsidely. Good game. Red remote. Button-button-news-cartoon-crash-kissing-weather-whale!
Come here kidda. Oopla.
Get up-hugged and sitting.
There we go.
Dad chair. Held.
Let’s see if we can get the sound on.
Teevee sings sea-grey-splash. A no-words song. My no-word-wants made noisingly out. No-wording together all spread apart singings – n o t – t o u c h i n g – like sky-birds know flying all arrows not crashing just brushing not drummings just rushing just ocean-songs rushing and rising and sea-song and grey-tail up-splashing.
Dwarfed by the vast expanse of the open ocean, the biggest animal that has ever lived on our planet.
Whale-wave slides with the lowing song. Makes uppingly splashes makes loudest-day-fountain at London-day-lions so shiny mouths cloud-eating-open. Gray-tail makes fountain from head.
A blue whale, thirty metres long and weighing over two-hundred tonnes.
Sing sing like ring-film like Not-Allowed-Bedtime! Got watched through the doorcrack run water-horse singing like ring-song.
It’s far bigger than even the biggest dinosaur. Its tongue weighs as much as an elephant. Its heart is the size of a car. And some of its blood vessels are so wide. That you could swim down them.
Going to swim them! Yes!
Its tail alone is the width of a small aircraft’s wings.
Outside the window has become sirens but I don’t hear them.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
For nine days I have been invisible.
Has she complained of a stomachache?
Oh no, she’s a good girl, she doesn’t complain.
Look eye-fists at Mum. Stupid. Complain doesn’t mean Naughty in hospital. Trying to stop nurse’s voice stucking Inside. Stowmak aykh. Even Inside-Booking-It voice, Foreign isn’t allowed. Put Foreign in the Problem Attic. Allowed to Book-It very nice. Mum says that very nice lady – that very nice nurse, because she is not allowed to say foreign. Pretend you can’t hear the different shapes. Loud radio sticking the words over mine. Stow-mak-aaykh-stow-mak-aaykh-stow-mak-aaykh-stow-mak-aaykh-stow-mak-aaykh-stow-mak-aaykh-stow-mak-aaykh. Turning off the stow-mak-aaykh-radio and making a Dayvid Atinburra by looking at Mum and the nurse and catching them in a teevee inside my eyes.
Has she complained of a stomachache?
Oh no, she’s a good girl, she doesn’t complain.
The very nice nurse undoes my buttons.
I just need to flush her hickman line.
Nurse words are going at Mum, not at me. Very nice nurse gets jection not needle jection just Wiggly-clip-push kind. Toothpaste lid off my Wiggly. Makes heart-skin-pull scarily. Rips packet. Smells like cleaning the bathroom. She puts cold into Wiggly and cold in my chest and cold-chest-cold-head having a very swimmy-swayee head got a swimming-pool-head so am shutting my eyes and now and e v e r y t h i n g i s g e t t i n g s l o w so she looks for words that are already made.
Has she complained of a stomachache?
Oh no, she’s a good girl, she doesn’t complain.
And then I stand up and I say I DO have a stomachache – but this is another lie because I can’t stand up and I do not get Outside-Words and for nine days I have been invisible.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
In sleeping the Drip-Treader comes. Trips the drip. Tugs the unscrewing. Tugs the awake. Pencil-arm for nine days not bending . Canoe inside elbow. Practice new words in my sleep-space. Can-you-laugh–Car-new-larch–Canoe-large. If she trips the drip it outs the arm. If all the way out then new nurse comes – not Glitter-Glue favourite, who taught canoe-lah. Gitter glue only comes in the not-sleep. Points Butterfly. Points pink plastic wings. No deelyboppers. A Needlefly. The Drip-Treader she trip-treads it like the goat-bridge she steps it and half-out is worse. Makes nose noise and pushes it back. Sometimes wonking prick still in the dark and it sticks out the skin and the drip-water salt-drips and puddles the floor.
Such a good girl. You never cry do you?
Little girl Books-It that Drip-Treader’s eyeless. Night-needles give jection the vinegar-jaw. Draws line between mind and the moving. When Dad came he told me. Not poison is medsin. Venn-Christine. Know Venn diagrams from window-look big-class-wall-pictures. Know Christine white sandals from church. Medsin made from periwinkles. Pretty purple grows by the post box. Before Wiggly stopped made it hurting Dad did oopla-upped me for red-letter-mouth. Used to send them with a lick-stick-stamp-lovely.
Keep Booking-It. Keep me safe in Booking-It. She kept Booking-It. She lay in the bed and she could not move. The eyeless Drip-Treader had come while she slept and she had put the Venn-Cristine inside the invisible girl. Smells like vinegar. It made her jaw tingle like a chip shop and then make her mouth lock up, made the teeth zip, made her think about how teeth fit together then the neck stiff then all the moving bits stiff like a funny ice-cube-man-cartoon. Falls flat on back. Bake-beans-can-laughing. Teevee audience cheers. From high above the girl watches herself wake up. Eyeballs still move. Breathing still moves as fast as running. Big white eyes in the dark.
You’re the only one who doesn’t mind this, you know. The other kiddies scream the bloody house down, don’t they! Best to get the needle in while you lot are sleeping – gets it over with quicker, doesn’t it. You lot always stop putting up a fight once I’ve started don’t you? See, that wasn’t that bad.
Ice cream brain in the rude bits. Feels like I’ve done something naughty. She Books looking at everything not-arm. She slowly big breathings. She looked at the fruit flies piggy-rides on the twisting blind. Listens the Drip-Treader click-away the all-gone-poison. Treads it. Drip-Treader drip treads the drip-string. Stomping stamp.
Door Noise
The arm cannot move the head cannot move. The white eyes in the dark move. She looked with the fuzzy edge-seeing at the pain place. Red inside the drip-string.
Remember. Mondays are for blood transfusions. Mondays have fish fingers. Today had flat-pasta-tomato-cheese-square. Today is not blood transfusion. Up at the bag. Water salty-see-through. Down at drip-string. Red. Pinking up the water. Frightened. Red goes into the drip-string goes up into the bag. The bag will take the blood. The blood is going the wrong way. The arm cannot move but the eyes can move and the breath can move like running more than running like fast fast insect the plastic butterfly can move – the blood can move until I’m empty.
Can I get a sea-knee-oar nurse in here quickly please?
Favourite comes and her badge has Glitter-Glue but I can’t read it yet and it’s pink and purple and I pretend I don’t like girl colours but I do and she takes off my pyjama top and she doesn’t make me lift up my arms and I love her completely purpley and she is glitter and a lot of talking and there is now a doctor that the little girl doesn’t know he’s pull-taken the needlefly and on the teevee the girl in the bed looks down at the way the arm hole shouldn’t be inside-out and then she looks up at the teevee but she’s on that teevee too and she keeps looking up Inside forever-teevees and she can still see it up there and all of the heads keep looking up forever and she is nearly naked on teevee so she closes her eyes and she was Booking-It again as the swimming pool packet tear ripped through and pull-dived her under.
Head up sweetheart.
And then she went swimming in the nice cold water and she swam for so long she learnt to read and the first word she read in the future was the name of her favourite in Glitter-Glue.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
Door noise
Morning little bandicoot. Heard you had a bit of a rough one last night.
Dad makes me real again. Handsing my head. I sit up in bed and start Booking-It to keep him with me. Says a word. Bleedback. Crinkles bag onto table and takes out a rabbit ears hat. Puts on my head. Ear flops.
I’ve got someone for you in here!
I loud hands him and it’s nice because he never shouts at handsing and the air goes up-and-down through my fingers to tell him I know! I know! Inside will be my Pickle Cat and Dad reaches into the bag and lifts him up and it’s him! My Pickle Cat. Happiness. Happiness.
I brought Bustifer Jones.
Dad says Bustifer Jones because he doesn’t know Pickle Cat’s name and Dad always says nonsense words but I don’t mind. I hold Pickle Cat and I loud my hands and I loud Pickle Cat too and Dad is smiling and he pretends loud hands all over my head so my nose goes hoof hoof hoof like a steam train and I can smell baked beans.
You ready for Thomas the Lunch Ejin?
I make No with my hands.
Can eyyyyyye have your lunch then?
I use Pickle Cat’s head to yes him my lunch.
Bustifer wanna swap lunches?
Pickle Yes.
Door noise
Dad will never come back. She Booked-It through the glass with the checky-check-box-squares and heard faces. Booked-it a man with wet lippy-mouth-eyeskin and forevering Drip-Treader hands. I listen Dad back to me but maybe he never came back.
Hey ho sunshine look what Thomas brought.
Strangled eggs.
Spangled legs!
Dad is wheelying the table Dad is clunking the plate. Beans spill. Cup of water. Water dots on the outside. Love you Dad. Say love you with eyes. Hands it too.
Kisses from Bustifer Jones, oh my!
Pickle Cat gives kisses.
Hey this is fancy. Look! Your own little teevee. You can watch the documentree channel. That’s nice.
I eat one of the table beans.
Oh hey there don’t eat those they’re not clean.
Dad crinkles the bag making triangles under my teeth. Tupperware box and a spoon.
Lid noise
Sosij casserowl.
Get the words big in my head. Sosij casserowl. Sosij casserowl. Sosij casserowl.
Shhhhhhh shh shh careful little one it’s okay what’s frettin you all of a sudden?
Oopla-ups me under my legs. Lets me cross my arms first to keep Wiggly safe. Dad sits on the bed and eats me the sosij and I forgot to Book-It for a bit.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
Had to have ketermin again. Back hurts. Tastes white and with teevee grains got real little and thought I was a baby getting smaller and smaller curled up spinning upside-down until I was a bean but I didn’t get to disappear this time. She was feeling quite calm now. She hears the Inside-Word she move like sheeeee like a car-fast-teevee.
Watching from once upon a time there lived her dad had feeding her the sosij casserole and the sosij had weird clear peel away skin on that was bad to touch.
It’s cos they’re proper sosijis from the butcher’s. They’ll help you make more red blood. Get you nice and rosy again.
Dad ate the plate beans and strangled legs and he fed her the sosijis after she made him make them naked and put all the peel away skin on a loopy pile off of her plate. Then he told her that he had to go away. She hands him No No but he said he had to go away. Not like go home or go to the supermarket but go away for a long time and then she knew she would never see him again and that if she could just make a scream he would understand and she could wrap him up in screams and make him stay but he wrapped her up instead in his arms and trapped her like a bed sheet and the fear that lived in the middle got bigger and she was drowning and sinking and the waves were crashing and crushing her and she kicked and kicked but her teeth could not find the sky and something went wrong with her dad and there was no Book because there was no air for words even Inside-Words need some air and so she had to Book-It later after the ketermin came.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
For three days I have been invisible. Glitter-Glue not come Mum not come.
Door Noise
Mum! Picks up orangejelly which I like best.
Hey kidda, want some jelly mmm yummy treat yum yum.
She is making big teeth like a clown-smile but eyes not right. Am trying to open the window by thinking about it really hard.
Not pleased to see me then?
Mum picks up spoon. Moves fast like hot-day-fan. Makes twenty spoon makes one-thousand. Moves spoon towards me. Gaps between fan-spoons get bigger.
There we go that’s got your attention.
Mum is pushing the spoon into the orangejelly. Getting too close at my face. Too high for biting. Makes belly go chest-tug. Mum’s words feel all scribbled. Sometimes invisibling goes in both ways. Need time to remember how to understand listening. If I can’t hear it right in my documentree then the jelly will taste wrong forever. I do not open my mouth. I pulled the sheet over my head to sink to the bottom of the world and make an understanding.
No? You know my mummy never let me waste food and what are they doing giving sick kids sweeties in hospital anyway.
She is saying it like it isn’t a question but the sentence should be shaped like a question.
Bin noise
Favourite orangejelly is bin-gone and I am as sad as I have ever been in my whole life.
Move over and let me in then.
I’m handsing her No No but I’m still bottom-world-under-sheet. On the bed she is sitting on the sheet it is tucked in and now I am trapped and her bum is pushing on my leg and I pushed her and I pushed my ears.
Jesus fuck I am not in the mood for this stop.
I close down my heart to becoming a jellyfish. Jellyfish have no brains because they don’t have heads they just float around and the sea moves them and sometimes the tide pushes them out of the water onto the sand and they dry up under the sun and they die and once at the beach I saw a black dog step on a jellyfish push a dog-foot-five-holes in the jellyfish and the jellyfish didn’t even care that it was maybe dead or maybe dying or drying up or had a black-dog-foot-hole because it had no brain because it had no head. She became a jellyfish so when she got sat on, by having no head and I do not push or hands No and I just let myself un-head-heart and float in the sun.
Wet sound
I am touching the wet bit of her face. I licked her face like a nice cat to make her happy and so I can pretend to be more of a salty jellyfish.
He’s gone.
Saying it lots. Wet eyes like crying. Not baby-mouth crying just old-looking sudden and sad.
He’s gone he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone your fucking father’s gone.
I hug her because hugs make Mum happy and I tried to have no head so I won’t hate her or bite her and then I cover up her mouth with my hand so she will be quiet so the Drip-Treader will not come and ketermin Mum.
Bastid.
She is saying bastid a lot too now.
Bastid bastid bastid bastid bastid bastid bastid bastid.
It’s just like when sometimes a word gets big in my head in Mum’s Outside-Words instead so I don’t mind but she has a complicated voice like telling off but it is not me but I still feel so naughty that the sad comes.
~ starfish * star * fish * starfish ~
I had nearly forgotten the car but it smells just like compost-jar so I have all my rememberings again. We are driving so fast my empty spot fills up with a quick blue frighten. The trees are becoming like fan-spoon. No. Opposite. Thousand trees made into one wide trunked tree. I know the names of trees. Favourite is silverbirch. The wide trunked tree is made of one-hundred trees and now it is not a type of tree at all. Maybe this is my favourite tree. Nearly-home-gravel crunches you-neekly but I forgot all my home sounds in hospital. Car-crunches perfectly into my memory-imaginings until the wheels stop and home is safe. There are snapdragons growing out of the wall. There are sweet peas growing in the wood stack. There are bees who make it not allowed in the shed. I can hear them helloing me against the windowpane. I think I must have been in the hospital for a lot more days than I thought. Mum comes to open the door but I am going to surprise her by undoing my seat belt by myself.
Did you have this undone the whole time?
She is not surprised in the right shape. Mum waves the seatbelt around and the silvery bit hit me but she didn’t see and then I was trapped in the car because Mum was not the right shape and making herself into the whole doorway. I hands her No her but she had turned me invisible again and so I pushed with my legs back to the other seat.
I’m going to count to three and then you’re going to get out of the car.
I want out but she doesn’t move at all and I can’t get out. The car door turns Mum into a square. Mum doesn’t look like a square and I have to remember it’s not real.
Oooooooooooone.
A very long One. I nose-breathe. Pull my feet in.
Two.
I don’t know what happens when Three comes. It’s never come before.
Three. Right. You want to stay in the car. Fine.
Door noise
Hurt! Closed so fast it whiteflashed my words away. The hurt won’t stop. I want to build a machine that makes Mum hear the pain that doors make. Machine to make Drip-Treader get locked out of her movings. I want to hurt the door I’m going to hurt the door I kicked the door I hate the door it needs to feel how loud it kicked me in the ears-head-teeth-heart. The kicking pulled up a pain into her knees and she kept hating the door with her kicks until the knee shooting pain was a bigger hurt than the loudhead pain and then I felt like I was inside a shhhing glass of water and on the wall the snapdragons were making the same dances over and over and I make the same dances with the snapdragons in the air with my hands and I Video-It so my fingers are leaving white in the sky like aeroplanes and now I think I will get out of the car and look at the bees.
z
z
Buzz z
z
z
I waited one-thousand for home but home didn’t waiting for me. Now there are gooseberries hedging over from Mrs Jan’s garden. The bees like the gooseberries so I am not touching them. Both hairy. Both round. Gooseberries. Geeseberries. Beesberries. I’m going to look at the fish. I am walking. I am wondering if I shouldn’t be walking. I can’t walk. I am meant to be someone who can’t walk but maybe that’s only in the hospital. I am looking at the fish. Their backs shine like the last poke on the piano. When fishes loops to bench side they sun-quick-flashing
plink-plink-plink
The grass is wet and bits are sharp. It smells quiet. Fish goes bench side.
Plink
I am putting my pointer finger on the water. The fishes will feel cold if I touch them. I have never touched a fish. I’m going to touch that fish.
Sweetie, do you want to come inside now?
I do not look at Mum but it’s okay because she’s all the right shape again and I will try to remember to touch the fish tomorrow. I think I am allowed to be walking. Mum is wearing her woolly sheep jumper. She smells of the paper in the drawers in the dresser in her bedroom and sweet fried onions.
Oh, that’s nice, is that a hug? Do you want to use your arms too?
I am playing at tents.
Get your head out of my jumper silly sosij.
I am missing a long-way-away Dad.
Let’s go inside. There are some very important people I want you to meet.
There is a man in my kitchen. Mum tight-holds my wrist makes my hands loud. Hellos him in a baby-voice. Hard-pull hand away. No. Will not hands him Hello.
She’s just shy, don’t worry.
He’s finger-tapping Dad’s
uɐƆ no⅄ ɟI
sᴉɥ┴ pɐǝɹ
pǝzᴉsdɐƆ ǝʌ’I
mug.
I know he’s Not-Dad, but I want you to be nice. Okay?
Big boy behinding him. Uninvisibles me with no-blinks.
Looks like we’ve got two shy ones, eh?
Oh, he is a sweetie. It’s like you’ve got a second Little Shadow.
Not Little. Big. Not-Dad is tooth-tonguing Dad’s mug. Not-Dad’s Big Shadow is eye-tasting me.