A Memory in the Sand

The drift between galaxies had become monotonous for Pneuma. Sugar is best enjoyed in scarcity, and she had been drowning in pastries of sweet cherries and merengue. Where the beauty of space could enthrall any planet-bound, locking them with wanderlust, Pneuma would only pause for a brief meal before floating onto another star system, her eyes already dyed galaxy purple and gold from the universe around her.

So what about this particular planet made her stop, Pneuma did not know. Maybe it was the way the nearby sun glimmered across the sand dunes, or the freckling of lakes that made the gem in Pneuma’s chest yearn for a homeland long-abandoned, but not forgotten. Maybe it was a memory in Pneuma’s own head that whispered a wish she’d had for millennia. And so, against her better judgment, Pneuma’s heart drew her down onto malleable earth.

It was a strange sensation: the atmosphere’s oxygen diffusing through Pneuma’s lungs, the softened beams of sun fading through clouds, the slither of sand between her paws after, for so long, only ever feeling the fleeting warmth of suns and the certainty of nothing’s chill. She coiled into the earth, slipping like a lizard into the warm grains. It may have been only for a moment, or it may have been a century that Pneuma lay there, fully submerged in the sand like a hippopotamus, nostrils and ears periscoping into the cerulean-teal sky above. She became one with the planet, its skies, its lakes, and its soil.

A memory nibbled at Pneuma’s mind as she lay. It was fuzzy, like a carving in the bark of a centuries-old tree. Time had scabbed over, but you could still see the outlines, creeping between the grain, giggling like a child found in a game of hide-and-seek. Breath plumed from Pneuma’s lungs as her eyes drifted shut. (How funny. It had been so long since Pneuma last used her lungs, favoring to stay in outer space, running solely on the fuel of stars she consumed.) As the curtains of her eyelids drew to darkness, the memory illuminated the stage within Pneuma’s mind.

The beach lay bare at first, but with every neuron’s spark, a new feature rose like a titan from the sands. There was the old concessions stand, with two spoke wheels and pastel-pink paint fading further under the ultraviolet beams of sunlight. There were children (small, mostly hairless creatures, with auburn skin and dexterous hands) clambering around the stand with small slips of paper, exchanging them for an iced cream treats and an expanding smile. Parents – and grandparents – watched on from afar, colourful drinks in hand, laughing among themselves as their seniorly facade softened with fruity liquor. But amidst the picnic blankets, neon-striped towels, and frolicking dogs, a single child stood out from the rest.

In an alcove of the beach, nested along a cobble cliff, the child sat alone in a bed of sand. Their feet rested on the border of land and sea, waves crashing against their calves as they scrounged through the damp earth, searching for the kind of things all little girls and boys do: a seashell, a shiny stone, a lost dime. Trinkets and treasures that lose their meaning to a narrative, but waft with the sentimental significance of a college degree or a photo of the deceased. The child would find something, pluck it from the sand, behold it for a heartbeat, then toss it into a neon orange pail beside them. Tick. Tack. The items would sound when landing into the pail, the resonation quieting with each new addition. Tick. Tack. 

One. Two. Three. The rhythm of the child’s search played in Pneuma’s ears. One, two, three. Four. Five. Pneuma observed from afar, cool seawater lapping her fur while she hid among the waves. Five dozen meters away she hummed along to the child’s percussive melody. Four meters she drifted. Three, two, and then one, before she reached none. Pneuma washed onto the shore, sand gritting through the fibers of her fur. The smiling child glanced her way, then quickly returned to their work.

What a lovely song you play, little one, her thoughts murmured to the child. For what reason do you make the instruments sing?

“I’m making a sandcastle!”

A sand castle? Pneuma thought of the structure’s stability. That is quite the feat.

“Momma says I can do anything if I put my mind to it.”

Well, maybe she is right, Pneuma gestured with her wing, but wouldn’t you prefer to do it with friends?

The child looked up to where Pneuma pointed. A gathering of people were playing on the beach, screeching and giggling in the seaspray as seagulls squawked above. Some people were kicking sand, others splashing waves, while the remainder drank sunbeams through their skin. The child shook their head, damp locks of hair swaying.

“They don’t like me very much,” the child returned to their excavation. “They don’t like people like me.”

Surely you must be mistaken, Pneuma said. You seem like a kind-hearted little creature.

“Not really. I punched Andy the other day. Andy cried, and Momma yelled. The teacher says I’m special,” the child plucked a quartz pebble from the sand, “but I don’t wanna be special.”

And why not?

“Special is just grown-up talk for bad kids.” Tick. “I don’t wanna be a bad kid.”

Punching Andy wasn’t nice, Pneuma agreed, but that was only a bad choice. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid.

The child just shrugged, plucking another quartz from the sand. Tack.

Did the teacher already tell you that?

“Yeah,” a grin stretched across the child’s face.

Well then, Pneuma found a quartz of her own, it must be true. You are not a bad kid. You are simply a good kid who made a bad choice.

Tick.

The child’s grin grew even wider, plucking another pebble from the sand.

Tack.

“You’re funny.”

Suddenly, a scream like steam from a spigot sounded from beside Pneuma and the child. A finger jabbed at Pneuma’s form like a skeletal talon, shouting words Pneuma could not comprehend, but understood the meaning of. She shifted her weight, standing on all fours, water and sand pouring out from her pelt. This just made Pneuma taller, though, sending a wave of screeching terror through the beach.

“What’s wrong?” the child asked over the crescendoing crowd.

My people, too, made a bad choice once, Pneuma’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. But I regretfully have no time to explain, little one. Thank you for keeping me company.

“You’re going?”

That is the way this world works. Some people do not understand the difference between a bad choice and a bad person, much less differentiate between a bad person and a bad bloodline. Pneuma’s wings flicked open. Farewell.

“Wait!” The child reached into their pail, procuring three rosy quartz crystals. “Take these.”

Are you certain? They are yours. How will you build your sand castle without them?

“My sandcastle can wait, and I’ll keep this one!” the child extended their palms. “But these are yours — Momma says it's rude to decline a gift — and when you have these, we can always remember each other!”

But why do you get only one, while I get three?

“Because you’re bigger than me, silly!”

You do make a fair point, Pneuma smiled, accepting the quartz pebbles from the child.

Suddenly, a loud, screeching vehicle with flashing red-and-blue lights swerved onto the beach. Its black beetle doors swung open, and a pair of blue-dressed people stumbled out, hollering against the already shouting crowd.

I really must be going.

“Okay. Goodbye, then.”

Goodbye, little one.

—————

Pneuma shifted in the sand, letting another sigh escape her lungs as her eyes reopened. The memory hung on her mind like morning coffee on a person’s breath. She slowly rose, the dry sand cascading from her fur in a way so similar and yet so foreign to that day she conversed with the child.

The child was likely old now, wrinkles folded into their face like those of the grandparents that watched over years ago. Pneuma wondered if the child now drank those sparkling drinks, if they still splashed in the waves, if they fished along the shores, if they lay in the beams of summer sun. Pneuma wondered if the child, no longer a child, even still walked among the living. Did the child ever make any friends? Did anyone remember them in their old age? Pneuma wondered if somewhere, tucked away in a box or a jewelry case, nested between macaroni art and dusty camping equipment, was a small quartz pebble. 

Pneuma shook out her fur, sand flying like flecks of glitter, flickering in the setting sunlight. Pneuma pondered her memory of the child, and of how such a fleeting moment could give way to such tangling emotions. Pneuma’s paws began to move on their own as she wished so deeply that she was not the only one who remembered them, and slowly, the form of a castle was created in the sands. Noticing what her subconscious had done, Pneuma sat back, looking onto the humble pile her mind deemed a castle. It would not last, this meager mound of sand. This planet had wind and water, but even without them, no celestial body stood between a meteor and this sand-blanketed planet.

But maybe, just maybe, before the erosion took hold of her creation, someone would find Pneuma’s castle. They would not know of the child or the pool games or the iced cream treats behind its fragile build, but they would know of the presence of another soul. They would know that despite the vastness of the universe, there was someone out there. Someone who still cared enough to create and share.

With a final stretch, Pneuma crouched, leapt into the air, spread her wings, and disappeared into the stratosphere.