The rosary beads.

femur61

A short piece of writing. Feel free to post opinions, good or bad. And, La Fhelie Padraig to everyone.

My hands trembled looking at the black-and-white photograph. Memories flooded back of the day my younger brother Sean and I went to the beach with our father. He instructed us to wear the warm blue cardigans knitted by our mother at Christmas.

On the way to the beach in our black Morris minor the black cumulous clouds above offered a promise of rain. The density of potholes increasing as the road turned into a wide dirt track when finally the golden beach appeared. Few people knew about it, we liked to think it as our beach. I wound down the window sticking my head out and inhaled the taste of the sea.

Sean moved, sat up, and stretched, he whispered his throat still full of sleep, ‘Are we here yet?’

With the last jolt the car stopped, my brother and I jumped out of it onto the wet sand, bucket and spade in our hands.

‘We’re here,’ said our father getting out of the car pulling his jacket tight. He digested the view, the vast sea extending out to meet the sky.
‘The beach. Your mother's favourite.’
That was our cue.

We took off our sandals and socks and ran down the beach to the shore. Patches of Azure blue from the sky above reflected on the gentle waves of the sea. I looked to the sky to see patches of blue sky mixed in between fluffy white clouds. The black cumulous clouds retreating as in respect of the day it was.

The white foam on the waves rose higher before they gently fell into the shoreline. I watched memorised by the ebb and flow of the sea. In the distance life buoys bobbed up and down with the waves. The seagulls swooped and dived in the hope to rise up in a thermal air current gliding them to new heights. Relaxing to the soothing lapping of waves against a wooden boat tied to a red and white buoy at the pier at first I didn’t hear Sean’s’ shouts for help, mistaking it for a seagulls cry.
I looked around the arc of the beach for him. My father’s broad shoulders ran towards the rock pools. The bucket and spade dropped, I thought. No, not today.

I ran fast, the hair I had so carefully pinned back before we left came loose. Within in seconds I reached the rock pools, climbing onto the rocks my foot slipped on a large slippy piece of globulous seaweed. I steadied myself quickly to reach my father who lay flat on the rocks half his body hanging into a pool. Soon I saw the pool was actually the edge of a cliff.
I lay flat beside my father, below lay a collection of shriveled seaweed and dried drift wood.

Sean's’ small body hugged a small tree on a ledge half way down. The trees roots had miraculously taken root on a grainy stony ledge. His bucket and spade lay on the rocks in on the floor below.
I prayed. I twisted the rosary beads now in my hand. I didn't remember taking them out of my pocket. My mother's rosary beads.

Father talked calmly to Sean, his blue eyes wide, the same colour as our mothers. Seans face drained of blood.
‘Sean take my hand.’ My father's long arms almost touched Sean, but he didn’t move, his white knuckles clung to the branches of the shrub.
‘Sean, it’s OK just take my hand, and I’ll pull you up.’

Sean still didn’t move. I don’t think he dared to breathe.
I watched my father wiggle out further over the edge of the cliff lowering himself closer to Sean. Fear rose at the thought he might slip and pull Sean down with him as he fell. However, he didn’t. He gripped Sean’s arm, pulling it, coaxing it loose from the shrub. Sean's eyes rose to look at our father, and at that second of distraction, my father pulled Sean up onto the cliff beside him. Tears of relief flowed from all our eyes.

We hugged, more united than the day we buried our mother two years before.

echo beach

I enjoyed that. Really emotional piece which builds up the tension nicely.

The only thing I would look at is the start. It might work better being told as it happened without saying that 'the memories flooded back'. I felt that put the reader at a distance from the narrator. It could work as the introduction to a short film but is perhaps a complication you don't need in such a short piece of writing.
A bit more detail about the father might also help us to visualise him.

Overall very well done.

Mr E

A few grammatical things jumped out at me, like sean's' (a few times) and "The bucket and spade dropped, I thought. No, not today." - you thought the bucket and spade dropped?

Absolute nitpicks though - loved it overall.

Clampdown

I would consider cutting out the first paragraph entirely, the readers will pick up that it's a memory. You could still use the line about the cardigan somewhere. the second paragraph paints an immediate picture for the reader to bring them right into the story.

femur61

Clampdown wrote: »

I would consider cutting out the first paragraph entirely, the readers will pick up that it's a memory. You could still use the line about the cardigan somewhere. the second paragraph paints an immediate picture for the reader to bring them right into the story.

Thanks. It was for my writing group and I had to write something about a photograph.

echo beach

femur61 wrote: »

Thanks. It was for my writing group and I had to write something about a photograph.

Don't know about your writing group but in mine we are fairly liberal about the themes. The purpose of the prompt is to get you started but if it works better in the end without it then I have no qualms about cutting it. The point is to produce the best writing you can.