We pocket planets

By Natasha Ranawake

The first time you shove them into your pockets, you don’t think much about it. Rocks, salt and sand, some fistful of a holy trinity, scraping the insides of the new summer shorts. You are too caught up in the idea of the ice cream parlour’s Neapolitan ideal that you are used to or counting on the waters to pull you in, just enough. For the most part, you are digging your toes and fingers into the pulp and pulling out a streak of shells and crab husks. You are just about six, barely out there, but the water soaks into your skin and you don’t think about any of it. Too caught up in nothing.

We are laughing it off, watching you on the tissue paper. Ridges, cracks and stains and we are drinking the soda, but it’s barely that. It’s fizzled off, and your lips don’t care. Your skin is crinkled with salt. You have fished out the usual bit from the waves; a bit of glass this time, a bottle cap and rocks. Switch on the tele to watch whatever the cable has on; news or football, you choose the doomscroll. You crave for the hangover just to taste the leftovers in the fridge and you want the sand in your hair to brush it off. So much for the fistful that you picked up; you thought you’d have the time to talk about it.

People drag the sea with them when they come back

I purse my lips and whistle against the glass bottle. Don’t know what song comes out and I don’t even know if it’s one to begin with.  I had picked it up and a packet-full of peanuts as a lunch. People drag the sea with them when they come back, and the water and salt becomes an inconvenience all of a sudden. For me, it’s a trail of breadcrumbs, a trail of the drinks I had on scorched plastic with the beer-stained paperback I had picked up from the bookshelf of travel guides and pulp novels. Now, it’s a part-time book and a full-time podium for rocks.

Four rocks I had found in a pool that I had sunk into. I had sunk my fists in and pulled them out, as part of a sample.

We sat on the plastic chairs, sipping on a medley of drinks and schoolyard gossip that we had picked up from albums and social media updates. I had stood and waited for the water; and my hands had scooped some of it. I run through the names of schoolgirls I had grown up with as I sink into the pool of rocks. I had closed my eyes and had tried to rub the salt off of me. For some reason, I had pocketed the handful and abandoned it and its face value on the paperback and on it, it looks nothing out of the ordinary.

Just some stock image from a travel magazine.

Standing over the rocks, I begin to count the indents, smooth enough and cool against the thumb. The indents are almost fit my fingertips. I go back to the rocks to see indents and little grains of salt, but instead all I see is a fistful of pocketed planets. There is one swirling into this cloud of white and brown, it almost looks like Jupiter.

No, it is definitely Jupiter.

You think you’ll have the time for them when you’re a little older, these pockets of planets and the planet pieces you leave, scattered on a shelf

You don’t really think about it at the start. When you’re a kid, the beach is just sand and water and whatever ice cream that calls out to you. And you shove rocks and shells into shorts and scrape your palms with bottle caps and bits of plastic that wash onto the shores. You are too young for planets but you’re getting too old to fuss about the ice cream they have. So, you don’t think of Jupiter and Mars; just the sprinkles or flake that you want with the only soft serve. You think you’ll have the time for them when you’re a little older, these pockets of planets and the planet pieces you leave, scattered on a shelf. But then you’ll have phone calls and texts that you contemplate on and that crisis of tuna tins and half cooked pasta. You’ll throw coats over hangers and scarves and by the time you come back, you’d have forgotten the rocks altogether. You’d wonder why you stuffed them into pockets or why you bothered to hold onto them. Then, you’ll be too old and the idea of beach rocks and planets is your niche or something completely unnecessary.  So, you leave them behind as paperweights. Then you’ll stumble by them, with the pockets of your shorts crammed with change, bus tickets and a set of keys. Then, just for a second, between the coffee and the hangover, you’ll see them. The planets.

Image: Scott Webb via Unsplash.