Tag Results
1 post tagged Sian Cummins
Cera, by Sian Cummins
The North Sea heaves, and Cera stands behind the sea wall and won’t go down. Don’t be an idiot—obviously she’s been down there before. Last year she and Lott walked from Margate to Westgate along the beaches, but she forgot about the rocks and slipped and became frustrated and pissed off and cancelled their night at the Chinese buffet. Lott had been looking forward to it because she lives in London and the buffet overlooks the sea. She forgets the charred shell of Dreamland just behind. And all the shit on the beach.
Cera’s become preoccupied with the anorexic’s ideal—the condemned man’s last meal. Hearty, and never digested. She’s wondered why it exists as a tradition. In films they bring in a plastic tray heaped with scran like Grandma used to serve. It’s perfunctory, almost an extra kick in the face because it’s so actively pointless. Feeding a person before you kill them seems a waste, and she feels the people of Thanet would resent the cost to the taxpayer if hanging was brought back.
But—too dark. This is the sort of thinking the group would want notes on. Her best friend Lott is what they call “fun-loving” and she danced along the beach, barefoot the full three miles. She’s been to Cape Town and claims she has soles like bear hide. Cera envisioned microfibres of glass easing themselves into Lott’s feet; poison darts tipped with effluence from the Kentish towns. Tubular worms pushed deeper into the skin with every step. Dog shit and ship’s oil. Her best friend is twenty-six, but she skipped across the shingle like a crazed kitten. They reached rocks, a headland blocked their way and Cera suggested the road. But Lott started climbing the three-foot stone outcrop that would take them round it. For Cera in her T-bar plimsoles the rocks were too slippery. Seaweed and grime started to get on the fabric uppers. They’d be wrecked. Lott shouted over her shoulder that it would be quicker if Cera took her shoes and socks off and Cera shrieked back that there was no way, and—there—the mood of the holiday slanted, never to right itself.
