Collection of the Abandoned
By: Liz Ann Stetler (Contest Judge)

In the beginning, there is only darkness and light. He creates them when he opens and closes his eyelids. The light invades him, seeping in through the cracks until it reaches his core. It scorches his skin and his soul and everything between. The light holds him captive in its cruel, unwavering gaze. His limbs are leaden and shackle him to the ground. When darkness comes, it is a friend and it brings with it the gift of reprieve.

 
He feels water both above and beneath him. The water above greets the water below in a rhythmic tinkle. He opens his lips and he catches the rain with his teeth and his tongue. The water below him pushes and pulls. It rushes up through his toes and fingers and scuttles about his shoulders before retreating. Still further below is earth: gritty and sharp and soft all at once. It is permeable, granulated. It covers his body as if he has just emerged from the ground, as if he were formed from the dust.

The clouds above him are gray and shifting. Lifting his head is a small miracle, sitting up is a feat. Around him is a world that he does not recognize. Strange objects claw out of the sand: a rusted bicycle, a plastic chair, a screen covered in seaweed, a wooden pallet. There are no trees, no plants growing from the earth. This place offers, instead, sand and rock and broken pieces of a different world.

In the distance, a stream of light pushes through the heavy clouds and falls to the ocean’s surface. His skin burns from the memory of the heat. He tries to stand, to walk to the pallet and use it to make some sort of shelter. But his feet are made of needles and his knees buckle beneath him. The movement stirs something in his lungs and he coughs until he cannot breathe. He spits out the residue; it is salty and metallic.

He rubs his legs to bring back circulation, but his shins are sunburnt and painful. He tries to rotate his ankle, but the movement pulls his burned skin taught. A wave sweeps up the shore and trickles over his legs. He lies down in the sand and lets the coolness of the water tend to him. In his head are many things. Prominent are the noises: a jackhammer, a marching band, a siren. Next is the thirst. After that is the pain. He solves all of this by slipping back in unconsciousness.

He is deep underwater but he can breathe. All around him are pulsing jellyfish. They are lit from within and fill the distance like stars in the night sky. They float without noticing his presence, as if he is one of them. As if he is not foreign here. When he moves his arms and legs, the water is silk against his skin. He breathes and is nourished. Instead of ribs he has gills. He kicks his feet and pushes forward, he spins and dives. He belongs here. This is natural. 

One of the glowing orbs touches his leg and it burns. One bumps into his chest. Another wraps its tentacles around his arm. The pain spreads through his entire body. He screams and thrashes to escape but it only serves to draw more to him. They wrap around his trunk and his throat. They wrap around his face and he is no longer able to draw breath.

He awakens on his side, coughing. Half of his face is submerged and with every gasp of air he also sucks in water. It fills his lungs and his stomach. Instinctively, he crawls to his knees and vomits. After, he trembles, both from weakness and from the chill in the evening breeze.

The objects strewn across the beach glint in the ruddy sunset. They are sharp against the sand. An antique television faces the ocean with a gaping mouth, as if baring its broken glass teeth from the shore. The dials are crusted over with barnacles. The cavity is filled with sand.

As the sun sets, it leaves behind a world in sepia. Enough light remains for him to see that he’s alone. Yet he is watched. A child’s bear, from its perch on the shattered remains of a grandfather clock, stares him down with one button eye. He stands on rubbery legs and makes his way inland. As he stumbles forward, he calls out, begging someone, anyone, to answer. His voice is stark against the shush of the waves in the background. It reverberates through the darkness and inside his skull.

He walks until the sand is replaced with rock. He sits on the suitcase by his feet and it gives under his weight. Further towards shore, the skeleton of a patio umbrella reaches from the sand. Strands of tattered fabric cling to the metal bones and sway in the breeze.

He scavenges the island and drops the things that he finds into a crinkled plastic bag. Printed on the front of the bag, over and over, are the words “Thank You.” He wraps a small, sandy blanket on one foot and a leather purse on the other. On his shoulders, he drapes the remnant of carpet. He is accustomed to the smell of mildew before long.

By the time dawn washes the edge of the horizon with crimson, his bag is a collection of goods. From under the patio umbrella, he untwists the cap on a bottle of tea and gulps until the liquid rises in his throat. He pops the cap off of a stick of waterlogged lip balm and rubs it between his hands. When it becomes creamy, he wipes it onto his face and neck and lips. He lies down in the sand and pulls the carpet over himself.
When he wakes, it is afternoon. His umbrella casts a long, slanted shadow. The air is heavy and the sky is clear. He digs through his bag and pulls out snack cake. He knows it will taste like a sponge, like sugary nothing. He knows he detests these. He tears the cellophane with his teeth. The cake is dry and hard and he washes it down with tea, which has warmed in the sun.

He is not the only living being on the island. There are small crabs, fast and watchful. They hide in shadows and burrow in holes in the sand. From what he can tell, they eat the trash. Something hazy in the corner of his mind wonders if the crabs have superpowers from eating toxic waste. Perhaps they eat the trash because there is nothing else. Perhaps they eat it because this is their home and the things that wash up on the shore are intruding. Perhaps they will eat him.

When the sun sets, he scavenges again. He must climb over mounds of discarded furniture and rubber tires and glass-less window panes. He stumbles more than once and catches himself on something sharp. His palms are sticky with blood.

This night, his search proves unfruitful. He sits on the suitcase and buries his feet in the sand. The waves, though distant, are relentless. Above him, the galaxy spreads itself out for admiration. The stars blink like lights on a factory tower. They are rhinestones glued onto folds of black velvet. Underneath such brilliance, the items on the beach are not decrepit but magical. They catch the light and twinkle like jewels in a pirate’s chest.

When he was young, he learned about the formation of the world and of Adam and Eve. Those two, those first humans of the earth, were meant to be stewards to creation. They were meant to care for all living things. He is Adam, stranded amongst creations made by his own kind. Stranded among a collection of the abandoned, the forgotten, the ruined. He has inherited this strange garden; this place where refuse grows from the rock, where debris collects in the sand. There is nothing here to steward. There are only the crabs, who are better adapted to this place.

Each day and each night, the ocean brings new pieces from the old world. Littered along the shore he finds a Styrofoam cooler, a bookshelf, and a lunch box, which he knows is empty even before he opens it. A glistening shaft juts out of the water. It looks like the wing of an aircraft. He battles against the jostling waves to the shank, which is long and smooth and gleams in the moonlight. He reaches out and places his palm against it. The metal is cold. It hasn’t been in the water long. There is no rust, no barnacles.

Back on the shore, under his skeletal umbrella, he waits for the sunrise. A crab scuttles over his foot. Out of instinct, he grabs it. Its shell is hard and bumpy. Its legs scramble frantically in the air. The creature is the size of his thumb and the snap of its shell breaking between his teeth is followed by a sour ooze. The legs become still and rest on his chin. He does not feel an influx of strength soaking into his stomach. He does not absorb knowledge of how to survive in this place. Inside of him is betrayal. He spits it to the ground but it is too late. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice scratches from disuse. “I’m so sorry.”

He will die here. His body will become less and less until he dissolves into the sand. His bones will bleach in the sun after the crabs pick them clean of flesh. He deserves this. Until then he will rest. He will last as long as he can by scavenging through the wreckage. In the end, the garden will prevail, as it always does, and Adam will return to the dust. The pieces that litter the beach will outlast him for a while but they, too, will decompose.