Sand King

By Jason Battle

         “It looks amazing, little buddy,” a masculine voice calls from behind Edward and his chest swells with pride. But it isn’t complete yet and Edward doesn’t answer.

                 Edward can’t look away, knowing that it would risk collapsing. Instead, he uses a plastic shovel, little more than a toy, a relic of when he was a mere toddler, to pat freshly wetted sand into the base of the outer wall. His hands, small with delicate fingers and a million sparkling grains of sand clinging to blonde and nearly invisible hair, pat the foundation. It is smooth and solid, resistant to the lakeshore breeze, but requires constant grooming to avoid destruction.

            A surge of water, pushed ashore by unseen forces, sends a flood of foam into the moat, filling it and eroding the edges. Edward uses those fragile hands like the shovel of an excavator as he pleads over his shoulder, “can you help?”

            There is no response, not another pair of hands, stronger and wider to help in clearing the incursion upon his sandcastle. There is no aid or advice or direction on how to divert the disaster. Chancing a glance over his shoulder to see if he heard his plea, Edward sees his father on his phone, his finger swiping absently, accompanied by the incessant pinging of an online casino game.

            “Did you say something?” his father finally returns, sweeping a dull, graying lock from before his sapphire eyes and glares down at Edward, the look of dejected absentmindedness.     

            “Nothing,” Edward replies. The deluge has subsided, leaving his castle’s moat a swollen carcass of what it once was, but the castle proper remains undamaged.

            Hands dig into the soft sand again. The mindless task allows him to listen to the dull rush of the tide, to smell the sharp bite of the salt-filled air, and to take in the other occupants of the beach.

            In the distance, gulls complain to each other as they wrestle over the scraps of a newly abandoned picnic. Closer, a family has arrived carrying a cluster of assorted beach accessories: beach chairs, buckets, a couple of coolers, and a nylon bag bulging with plastic toys. Two parents begin to set up their umbrellas while their children, each younger than Edward himself, search for shells amidst the sunbaked shore. A memory, or something like it, stirs within Edward at their presence, visions of his own family spending long afternoons on the lake’s shore, together, a cohesive unit with him at the center. Otherwise, the beach is empty, a windy day in late September inappropriate for swimming or sunbathing.

            “It’s kind of cold,” his father passes his phone into his other hand and asks, as if coming to the same conclusion, “Are you about done?”

            “I’m still building.” Edward’s voice sounds childish and desperate even to himself and he refuses to look up, embarrassed when another wave rolls in, its water wandering closely to the edge of the castle’s walls, but again it’s warded off.

            Edward can tell it is more than the cold that is pulling his father away as he goes back to his phone. The dull clicks and ringing that accompanies another pull at the machine gives him away and Edward focuses intently on his project.

            The individual grains of sand in his castle sparkle in the light where the top of the highest tower, set in the center of four pressed sand walls, stands barely higher than his knees. At each corner there’s another smaller pillar of dripped mud, drying in the sea breeze. Edward imagines a fearless sentinel, hardened eyes watching in determination as the sea swells sustain an assault on the walls. Only vigilance prevents the sundering of the entire foundation.

            “What’s this?” his father reaches down and plucks a tiny figure off of a throne made from miniscule flattened pebbles, on the top of the castle’s central tower. His action jerks Edward out of his temporary imagination.

            “That’s my Sand King,” he answers and his voice wavers uncontrollably. Edward tries not to notice the disapproval developing in his father’s eyes.

            Pinched between his father’s fingers, the tiny Lego figure looks fragile and vulnerable, like an empty eggshell worn thin by time. He turns over the lead character in Edward’s quests, the Sand King.  The figure, who wears green swim trunks, has a barren chest, exposed and honest. His face, partially covered by greying facial hair, is open and authentic. Today he’s dressed in a white, wide-brimmed sunhat, the leftover component of a safari adventure set, his sole protection.

            “Aren’t you getting old to be playing with these still?” His father drops the Sand King on the ground beside the castle and the figure rolls into the moat.

            Edward reaches down to grab the tiny figure as the tide swells and picks him up. The water carries the Sand King away, tumbling in the swell towards the unforgiving expanse of the lake, where rescue is impossible, where he’ll become simply another piece of flotsam, endlessly wandering the broken waves. A larger, menacing wave rushes towards him and Edward goes to his knees, lurching awkwardly, using his hands as a net to try to scoop him up. Just as the latest surge almost pulls him away, Edward feels his fragile, rigid plastic body in his grip, and he wraps his fingers around him tightly as he pushes himself to standing.

            The desperate rescue of the Sand King in the cold Lake Michigan waters leaves him cold and frantic. Equal doses of anger and desperation course through Edward’s small body and he approaches his father, determined to express frustration.

            Instead, his father speaks first. “Your mother will be here soon.”

            He says the words with a thinly veiled flush of relief as if he was some nighttime sentry, watching the sunrise and knowing that reprieve is near. Edward’s anger is set aside, washed away, and replaced by anxious trepidation.

            He knows his time to delay is over. He places the Sand King back on his throne and asks his father the question he has been dreading hearing himself say all day. “Are you coming to my chess tournament this Saturday? It’s at my school. My teacher says I have a good chance to win my age group.”

            “Of course, I wouldn’t miss it.” It’s a beautiful lie, delivered with the utmost precision. But beneath the fluid response, Edward detects the promise of a caveat, one so similar to promises before it that were rescinded at the last possible moment.

            Edward is about to tell him about the time he has spent preparing for the tournament—the books he read on different openings and how to counter them, the videos discussing innumerable traps and gambits, not to mention reviewing the games of the old masters, trying desperately to discern their stratagems. But just then he hears the familiar rusted hinges of his mother’s ancient pickup door slam shut. His father, apparently recognizing the sound himself, holds up his arm, looking like a schoolkid in class, urgently trying to get the teacher’s attention as if, on this semi-deserted strip of sand, she would not find them. Then the quick ping of him sending a message.

            Low, narrow dunes separate the beach’s municipal parking lot from the strip of sand that Edward and his father normally frequent. She winds her way on a well-worn path of beaten dirt between the beach grass, their browning vegetation bending and curling to the whimsy of the shore’s breeze. Her shoulders slump and her gait is burdened, the expression of someone straining beneath the press of responsibility and regret. Still wearing her uniform from the diner with its boxy cut and cheap materials, she looks older than she is and considerably older than Edward’s father despite the two being within six months of each other. Even the wind offers her no reprieve, and a gust blows her hair to one side, revealing a thick line of grey underneath.

            “Sorry I’m late,” she says as she approaches, though it’s unclear who this is addressed to. “There was an incident at the diner today, some junkie nearly died, and the police came around to interview all the witnesses. I had to stay until they let us go.”

            “Well, luckily Oksana was able to leave work early and pick up the kids from daycare.” Edward’s father sends off a last message and pockets his phone. “Helen, you should have told them you had to get your son. They probably would have released you after they interviewed you.”

            “Maybe,” Helen responds with a tired and defeated shrug.

            “I have to go,” his father says. Then, he looks down at Edward who has been kneeling in the wet sand, trying to appear small. “I’ll see you next Sunday, ok little buddy?”

            Edward nods and looks out over the water. Far out, where the blue is deeper and vibrant, where the edge of the shore falls off into the infinite abyss, a single tern dives into the lake, pulling its wings to its side and plummeting into the frigid water. He waits, watching for its reappearance, a hint that its journey was not in vain, but several long moments pass and there is no sign. His eyes begin to water, and a lonely tear slides down his cheek.

            “Did you tell him about Saturday?” his mother asks.

            Helen’s hand, her cracked fingernails colored with cheap nail polish, rests on his shoulder. Edward nods, knowing his father has already left, his presence leaving a void in his wake.

            “I’m sorry,” Helen apologizes again, this time to her son. “Did you want to build some more?”

            “I’d like that,” Edward smiles for the first time today but as he does, he notices an empty throne atop the tallest central tower in his sandcastle. A feeling of alarm and terror shoots through him and he is frozen in fear. Visions of his Sand King buried beneath the waves or stolen in the beak of some wandering sea bird fill his mind. He begins to frantically search his pockets and the sand near his castle, his dread building with every passing second.

            “Is this what you’re looking for Edward?” Helen holds the Sand King in her open palm. “He was blown off the top by the wind when you weren’t looking. Don’t worry though, we’ll both make sure he doesn’t disappear again.”