Chemical Treatment

This week I have been on the beautiful island of Eigg. You may find a certain coastal theme to the daily stories – but the weekly story for paid subscribers was written ahead, so that one's about being trapped in a portable toilet. I apologise for the incongruity.

This week’s daily stories

Monday

Doreen printed an A4 sign for the cigarette bin: “Do not use, Birds Nesting”. It was kind, and it was an excuse to use the laminator. Next year they were back again. Doreen thought she recognised one of last year’s chicks, now laying. She persuaded management to install a second cigarette bin. The year after, both were occupied, and she suggested they buy nest boxes instead. Everyone had quit by then, anyway. They spent their breaks watching the birds.

Tuesday

I emerged from the hollow of the tree into a land I had long imagined. I saw at once it was all wrong: the mile-high cliffs, the million golden birds. I had known nothing of the scale of the world while I was in it. This place I had dreamed up could not keep itself together and still hold people like me. Yet there was the ground beneath my feet, firm and true, and blanketed with singing flowers.

Wednesday

It was all mist and drizzle on the day I learned how much of the Earth is covered by sea. I sat by the cold shore I had been dragged away to two cold summers ago, and thought how much sense it made, that almost all the world was grey and empty like that. But the next morning’s sun burned sky and sea blue, and I saw silver clouds in the water, and horizons where there had been fog, and the promise of islands.

Thursday

We believed her, at first: that dolphins were witches’ creatures, unlucky to see; that to watch a sunset meant death by morning. We accepted that the beauty of a flower was in proportion to its toxicity, and that the same was true of the laughter of friends. But she pushed beyond her strength. She said that wholesome food and dreams should both be bitter, and brewed tea that fulfilled both oughts. We could not swallow it. We opened.

Friday

The tide forgot to come in. I waved the tide tables at it, pointed to my watch and the sands and the mud. I looked up at the moon, pale and whole in the blue sky, still pulling at us. I can wait, I shouted at the sea. I’ve got all day. I was outwaited. The next day it came back, not crawling but crashing. I spat in a wave, but I didn’t mean it. The tide took me in its arms and told me all about the pretty mermaid that had kept it out so long.

Saturday

Down on the beach a boy in green swimmers was building a sundial. He had stuck a long driftwood branch into the wet sand and set seashells round it as the shadow moved, a different one each hour. As he pushed a crab claw into place I asked him, "How do you know what number each shell is?" He shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he said. "They'll all wash away before the sun comes back round."

Sunday

They left the hotel with a little stack of leaflets. The UK's funnest day out. The World-Famous Old Boot Inn. Kit wanted to go to all of them. He was already plotting a route. But Alex was pulling scraps off the corners, tearing them into smaller and smaller pieces. The map didn't match the roads. The opening dates didn't match the calendar. And who in the world had heard of the Old Boot Inn?

I have been reading...

In an attempt to travel light, I have been reading on my ereader this week. But I am increasingly grumpy about the whole idea of DRM-encumbered ebooks, so I have been limited to what I could read DRM-free – which was a fine selection:

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, in the linked edition by Standard Ebooks. Standard Ebooks take texts in the public domain and make them into polished ebook editions. I'm grateful to them for this one, which draws me close to having read as many Brontë novels as I have made visits to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
• The Off Season by Jodie Robins, part of the Northern Weird Project from Wild Hunt Books. I've had the novellas in this series sitting waiting to be read for ages but haven't got round to them. The Off Season blends the charming and the bleak much like the wintry seaside it depicts. I hope to get to the others in the series with less delay.
• The tenth and final issue of Inner Worlds, which ended earlier this year. I particularly enjoyed "The Listening Room" by Carol Mbugua. All ten issues of Inner Worlds are available to read for free online.

If you buy books linked to from Scattering, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops.

Chemical Treatment

Suddenly it all stopped, and Sam found herself wondering who had brought the padlock. It didn't matter just then, with the stink of chemical-bathed sewage in her nose and eyes and the nausea rising in her stomach, but it was all she could think of. For most of them it was a bit of spontaneous fun: lock her in and shake her up and hear the way her screaming echoed. She was saving her screams for when she got out, but for all her anger, part of her knew she would have joined in if she as on the outside. But one of them had thought about it, found a lock, maybe even bought one. Made sure it was in their pocket when they came out. Maybe led them here. Sam wouldn't have done that.

Of course, nobody had really led them here. That wasn't how their little gang went about. Everyone followed everyone, so they never went, they just ended up. This evening they had ended up in the big car park, where the portaloos waited for the Sunday market, and Sam had been the unlucky one with the quickest bladder. It had been half a plan at most, but that was enough.