Intertwine

93 - Rogers I Will Slap You Back Into 1940

My vision went dark. 

I was standing on a beach. Four years old again, with frizzy brown curls down to my shoulders, clutching a sea shell in my chubby little hands.

"DADDY!" I shouted, running back from the shore. "Daddy, look!" 

I unclasped my fingers to show him the gorgeous cream and peach shell in my hands, it's middle a spiral.

"Wow!" He took it from me, turning it around in his fingers. "This is beautiful sweet pea." He ruffled my hair, making me giggle. "We're going to have to keep this one." He put it with the mountain of other shells I'd collected beside him, all of which he'd said we had to keep. 

I beamed, and clasped my hands behind my back, swaying slightly on the spot. "Are you going to show uncle Tony?" I asked.

"Hey Tony!" He called to the man beside him who had a book open, resting on his face. He laughed and shook the man. "Tony, look at what Ali found."

Uncle Tony grunted and removed the book, dropping it beside him. He whipped off his sunglasses and looked at it. "Cool."

"Hey, c'mon man, it's beautiful." My father laughed. "She's really got an eye for those kinds of things, hasn't she?"

Uncle Tony raised an eyebrow at me. "Do you want to collect things when you're older?" He asked me.

"I want pretty things." I smiled. "Like the robots Daddy makes."

"You should try making them yourself." He glanced at my father. "Have you got her building circuit boards yet?" 

He shook his head. "She's too young for that, just let her have a childhood."

Uncle Tony shook his head but after a warning look from my father winked at me and said, "Real pretty kid." He put his sunglasses back on and gingerly put his book on top of him. Before long he'd resumed his gentle snoring.

"Maria!" My father called. "Look what Ali found." 

My mother walked up the beach from her swim in the sea, trying to wring out her hair a little. "Let me see." She picked the shell up. "This is a real find Ali, where'd you get it from?"

"Over there." I pointed at the sandy sea shore. "In the wet bit. It was all ucky so I washed it in the sea."

"Well you've made it all clean." She gave me a kiss on my cheek. "You know with these shells if you put them to your ear you can hear the sea calling to you."

"You can?" I asked, eyes wide.

"Look, let me show you." She bent down and pressed the open part of the spiral to my ear. "Can you hear it?"

I nodded. "I can hear it Mommy." 

It was the sea, calling to me. Its soothing rumbling swirling round and round in my ear, waves crashing onto the shore, over and over again, moving in and out. The white foam running up and down my little legs. It was the sound of home.

With a gasp I opened my eyes and spat out the dust that had filled my mouth. I coughed until I thought I would hack up a lung and then spat out the grit from my tongue.

"Steve?" I croaked. I couldn't see through the rubble. I couldn't see anything but dust and blocks of concrete. My body was at an awkward angle in a tiny pocket of rubble, blocks of concrete all around me. Somehow, as if by magic, my head hadn't been crushed. A couple of metal beams were sticking out all over the place. I heard a trickle of liquid running around my feet. I looked down, expecting to see blood, but even in the dim lighting I could tell it was water. A pipe had burst, and it was beginning to fill the small area I was in.