By Devan Erno
The first good shoes Jesse ever owned were a deep red with blue stripes running midway along the sides. He had picked them out himself, in a fancy shoe store where someone carefully set his feet in a giant metal footprint, which told them exactly what size was best. All the shoes he’d previously owned had come from stores that sold a little bit of everything, all of it faded and worn. No others had ever fit properly. And none of them had come in a box.
It was plain cardboard with a small black logo printed on it. A hinged lid opened and closed over and over again, yet it remained new and unspoiled. The possibilities were endless.
“Please, Dad?” Jesse said.
Dad sighed, for a moment looking faded and worn, like Jesse’s old Velcro shoes that he’d never have to wear again. Then he smiled in resignation. “Alright. Let’s get going, then.”
He winced at the counter when he paid. Jesse wondered if his leg was hurting again.
*
Jesse sat with Dad at the brown dining table, sunset through the window revealing the thick layer of dust on the unused side. They silently ate their plain pasta. He didn’t really remember Mom, but Dad always said she had been a better cook.
Dad broke the silence. “Do you remember going to the sea?”
Jesse thought hard. “Nope. Don’t think so.”
Whenever Dad smiled, he seemed even sadder. “It was your Mom’s favorite place. Tomorrow let’s get in the car and go there. She always liked collecting seashells.”
Before bed, Jesse decided what to use the shoebox for. With a black marker, he wrote in stuttering letters on its top: PRESHUS THINGS.
*
The sea and sky were both the same shade of grey, as if that had been the only colour left when the world awoke and painted itself that day. But grey or not, there was magic in the shoreline. Jesse watched the steely waves coming in, pulsing to unseen rhythms. He strolled down the pebbly strand, occasionally stopping to gather a dried-out shell. He placed them in his box, carefully folding the lid over each time. Each one was unique, pretty in its own way.
After exploring for a time, Jesse looked back. Dad was seated on a colourless log, bark stripped off, washed up years ago by a relentless high tide.
“Dad! Over here!”
Slowly, Dad got to his feet and walked over. His face was red for some reason, even though it wasn’t sunny enough to burn.
“What’ve you found, Jesse?”
“Look!” Jesse waved a hand at the tidal pool that had formed where the sand and pebbles made way for a patch of rocky ground, its centre sunken as if a giant’s fist had punched it down.
Both of them knelt. Little crabs scuttled sideways in the water, some taking cautious steps out of the pool, others moving quickly, as though running errands. Mussels and sea urchins sat motionless; a lone sea star’s purple brightened the pool, the only creature that wasn’t trying to conceal itself.
“Which one’s your favorite?” asked Dad.
“Hmm, I’m not sure. Maybe the crabs, because they move around a lot.”
“The sea star’s pretty. Too bad it’s alone though. I guess in this pool I prefer the crabs too.”
“I’m going to look around more,” said Jesse.
“Okay. Just for a few more minutes. We need to head home soon.”
“Can you hold my box? It’s full enough.”
It wasn’t until the next morning that Jesse noticed the lid of his box didn’t close all the way. But he had taken great care not to overfill it. Slowly opening the lid, he saw a small chunk of wood, twisted and gnarled, its corrugated surface rough in places, smooth in others. A thin, spiky shard had nearly pierced the smooth surface of the shoebox lid.
“Dad! Why’s this thing in my box?” Inexplicable tears filled his eyes.
Quick footsteps as Dad stepped into the tidy room. “It’s driftwood. I thought you’d like it. Mom always picked it up on the beach, along with shells. Every piece is unique, you know. Precious. Hey, what’s wrong?”
“It’s for my things! Not the things you say! I don’t even remember Mom. And it doesn’t fit!” Jesse threw the box into his closet.
*
It sat, untouched. Not forgotten, but unwanted. Jesse still didn’t know why the driftwood had made him so angry, but looking at the box made him feel bad. So he buried it all under school projects, art assignments, broken hand-me-down toys. Like layers of sediment, crushed under unbearable pressures into stone, the strata of childhood waited for an excavator.
One day, after he had outgrown his good red shoes, Jesse began to dig through the rubble. Not with any specific purpose in mind. A stack of papers fell to the floor, revealing the box. He flipped it open. There was a bump in the lid, but it wasn’t ruined. Maybe it was even better than new. After all, the small flaw allowed it to hold more things.
Jesse carried it to the kitchen, where he knew Dad would be this morning, fingers of one hand twined around a chipped coffee cup, other hand absently tracing a path along the dusty table as he looked out the window.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, Jesse?” The tired smile again. “Oh, that old box?”
“I’m sorry. About the driftwood. I looked again, and it fits perfectly.” It was hard to get the words out. “Dad? Can you tell me about why Mom liked driftwood? I get the shells, they’re pretty. But this is just wood.”
Dad had trouble speaking too. “She said it was like looking at clouds. Everyone could look and see something a bit different.”
“It sort of looks like a dinosaur skull.”
“Interesting. I see a mountain peak, if you turn it this way.”
“Can we go back to the beach sometime?”
Dad’s smile wasn’t sad at all this time. “How about tomorrow?”
* * *
Devan lives in Calgary, and writes in a variety of genres. When he’s not writing, he runs marathons, plays board games with his family, travels, and works as a database administrator.