​​​​Stewart Dawson

            From Castles and Tunnels

​This story was written inside a tunnel. It was a long tunnel, the length of a summer. But it didn’t go through a mountain or under the water like some tunnels do. It didn’t run under a city with noisy trains. This tunnel was dug underneath a sand castle on the beach. It was a long tunnel, the length of a child’s arm.

The words of this story only traveled through the tunnel. But the story itself is written there, somewhere on the grains of sand that remain. The water of the lake has dissolved the castle and filled in the tunnel and the architect has gone home to build new castles with numbers and playgrounds and crayons. The architect has gone home to dig new tunnels into the future. But the story remains there on the beach with the shells and feathers and sand. Its words ran through the tunnel and then were washed down the beach when the water came in. But I know the story remains.

I walk the length of the beach and see the ruins of castles everywhere in various stages of deluge. A flat stone maybe used for a castle gate, a feather for a flag, some shells perhaps for the windows. And still, awaiting the waves: the small footprints of the ghosts of the giant architects. I try to find the words of these stories but they are scattered like the sea birds and can only be imagined now.

The length of my arm travels to the sand and I scoop up a handful that contains part of the story, a chapter or maybe just a paragraph or a sentence or just part of a sentence. I try to imagine the words that went through the story. I am alone on the beach except for the gulls that I also think are like the words. Maybe they are the words but they scatter and fly away when I get close. Sometimes I feel like I am the words of this story.

My arms dug tunnels here when I was young. Maybe through this sand or maybe it was different sand then. It doesn’t really matter. And some years later, I wrote the words, “I love you.” And then I took a picture of the words with my camera. I sent the picture of the words to someone who looked at the picture and liked it. She is gone now with the words but the story is still somewhere in the sand.

And still later: now, I still walk this distance along the water’s edge and I think of all the tunnels and castles and words. I think of all the architects and countless lovers who built castles and wrote the words in the sand.  Slowly the water will rise and replace all the castles and fill in all the tunnels, erase the words, and leave only seamarks. Seamarks are the words and stories the lake leaves behind when the water surges and then freezes in winter.

This story was written in a tunnel. It was a long tunnel, the length of youth. But now the words are scattered in the feathers and the sand and the seagulls. Try to read them if you ever walk this beach. I know they are there.