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How clear does the message need to be?

Built on a structure from Neil Gaiman’s The Price.

2483 words – 9min reading time.

Success in any form requires ignorance. Conscious at first – as success is generally gained through another’s failure. Then unconscious –  as complacency sets in.

I think seagulls are a conscious reminder about our place in the world, and don’t care who’s head they deposit on, or dinner they pinch.

This one craned its neck keeping its beady eye on my bag of fish and chips. I could see it was contemplating a smash and grab – just close enough to unnerve me, and just far enough away that I couldn’t kick it.

Normally, I enjoy my dinner quietly observing the people of the world go on about their important business. And, normally, I ignore the seagull audience that would just as easily take a finger as they would a stray chip. But this seagull had a rainbow beak. Not just the usual ketchup spot stain that all seagulls have, but stripes of green and blue and pink.

I looked around me to see if its gang were sneaking in from either side, but its thug friends were patrolling the rest of the beach, reminding day-trippers they’d do well to remember their place in this domain.

The seagull, with its intense scrutinising stare bothered me more than normal. I felt like it was judging me. And to an extent, I scrutinised back. Maybe it was the rainbow stripes that made me more attentive, more open to influence than normal. There was definite intelligence in its eyes.

“If I give you a chip, will you leave me alone?” I asked vacantly.

It flicked its head twice, the way a person would does when they want you to follow them. Or maybe it was thinking that I hurry up and throw it a chip to eat?

It shook its head as if reading my thoughts. I blinked, poised with a chip halfway to my mouth. Mesmerised by the prospect of a seagull that understood English.

“You want me to follow you?”

Two flicks again. This was more than co-incidence. Seagulls didn’t speak human, let alone english. Maybe it was trained? Maybe it had escaped from the bird sanctuary along the coast, one of those show birds they use.

“Where?” I continued.

The seagull looked at the waves, then back at me. Two more flicks. Then it turned and walked towards the water. So I did what any person would do meeting a seagull with higher intelligence. I stood up and followed it.

I still don’t know why. Maybe I thought it was a new species and this would change my life forever. Some Puffins have beaks that look like rainbows, it’s plausible it could have been an undiscovered cross-breed that would make me famous. Or, maybe it was an undercooked fish that had given me food poisoning and my imagination was trying to avoid a potential sickness.

I visited this beach enough that if Clyde (which was the seagull’s name – we’ll come to that later) was a frequent visitor to this beach, its brightly coloured bill would bring tourists flocking. So I must not be imagining it, and I must be on to something ground-breaking. Not bad for a Tuesday dinner-break.

As it neared the lapping waves the most incredible phenomenon occurred. The water separated in front of it, like it was pushing some giant invisible box. And as it continued walking, the box revealed a path as it pushed water aside and the waves lapped against an invisible barrier, preventing the impossible chasm from collapsing.

I stared mouth open. An intelligent, magic seagull, that now apparently could re-enact scenes from the Bible.

“Holy Moses,” I breathed.

Clyde, actually,” a voice came from somewhere, I turned to see if anyone was following us, but it was just me and the seagull. I stared down at it. It stared back, head cocked.

“What?” I said, in the same way you do when a shop owner charges 10p for a plastic bag when you’ve just bought a pair of £100 trainers.

“Clyde Seagull. Middle name, the.” it bowed its head slightly in a greeting gestures. “Moses did more of a parting thing, and had a bigger audience.”

An intelligent, magic, talking, seagull. It must be a dodgy batch of fish and chips.

I felt my pulse in my head as the blood, or adrenaline, or whatever coursed around me. I wanted, willed it to talk again. The questions I could ask it, to get its point of view, to understand it. I replayed its words in my head.

“Are you from, Liverpool?”

“What, a talking seagull not remarkable enough for you?”

And sassy apparently.

“Well no, er, yes, but… I just didn’t expect a seagull to be from, well. Liverpool.”

“Humans!” sighed Clyde, shaking its head, “you think you’re pushing the boundaries of discovery, then you discover hair gel and peroxide and come to an evolutionary halt.” It paused for a beat, “and it’s The Wirral actually. I won’t take offence.”

“Are many seagulls from The Wirral?” I enquired, hesitantly.

“Not with rainbow-coloured beaks.”

And it turned and walked off further out to sea, a path emerging as the water separated in front of us.

“Come on,” Clyde shouted, “adventure awaits Mr. Ewan.”

“It’s pronounced, ‘ee – one’, actually,” I started after him, “Neil Ewan.”

“That’s awkward,” he chuckled. “Come on, N. Ewan,” he continued chuckling, “it’s great being a seagull, the more you live the more you love.”

I looked down at the half-eaten bag of fish and chips then at the watery walls of the impossible chasm surrounding me. Then followed him, ignoring the fear of certain drowning, and my chips going cold

We walked far enough for my head to dip below the water line. If I’d been swimming in water this deep, my internal alarm would already have told me to be wary of krakens, man-eating whales and Flying Dutchmen. But here I was perfectly safe, following Clyde to who knows where? I’d followed him this far, I had to find out.

Clyde’s little legs scampered on, webbed orange feet slapping on wet sand. I always imagined the sea to be a noisy place, on those TV documentaries where some poor camera-operator sits on the ocean floor filming the crashing waves overhead, you’d expect a roar. But it was quite serene following Clyde’s footstep. The moment was beautiful. Not my normal Tuesday dinner break.

Suddenly a crab scuttled out of the liquid wall and stopped on the sandy path. I shrieked like a child and spilled chips on the floor. In one pincer, the crab grasped the handles of a plastic shopping bag for life, dragging across the sea bed behind it.

I pointed, “Why does it have a…”

“You gonna clean those up?” Clyde interrupted.

“What?” I murmured, transfixed by the shopping bag, but admittedly, not the strangest thing I’d seen today. “Oh, the chips? They’ll be sandy now. Why does…”

“And?” Clyde’s tone was short.

I looked at it hesitantly “You expect me to eat sandy chips?”

“I expect you to clean up after yourself” Clyde said patronisingly, “and dispose of them appropriately.”

“But the crab made me jump.”

“The crab – Pamela – has more right to be here than you. And live a chip free diet.”

“But it was an accident, it’s not my fault.”

“Are you seriously deferring blame to a voiceless crustacean?” sass, with a side-order of attitude.

“But the other chips will get contaminated.”

“Well, sorry for the inconvenience,” if Clyde had eyebrows, they’d be raised to accompany his patronising tone. “Besides, your chips are cold, you’re probably going to throw them away.  Another pointless death.”

Clyde flicked its beak pointing to something by my head. As I turned and peered through the watery walls, two black fishy eyes stared at me over an unhappy mouth, it’s silver scales glistened as it swayed in the water. The fish looked to my half-eaten chips, then back at me, and if possible, looked even more sad. Then it swam off.

Clyde interrupted the silence, “It’s a bag for life, the clue’s in the name.”

“What?”

“It’s a bag, for life. She’s got loads. Presumably, she’ll live a very long life if she has so many bags.”

Clyde looked down at Pamela who was passing through the barrier back into the ocean again. The last thing to disappear was a her pincer, proudly holding a chip.

“Shall I…?” I motioned to the chip.

“No,” sighed Clyde, “the damage is done, why deprive her of an easy supper?” He turned and continued walking.

“Where are we going?” I called after him, my dinner break didn’t last forever, I had shelves to stack, “Should I text someone let them know I’m going to be late?”

“Late?” it chuckled, then nonchalantly, “you’re going to be very late. You’re going to die down here.”

“What!” I cried and dropped the rest of my chips, a feast for Pamela. “How?”

“You followed an intelligent, magic, talking seagull underwater and you didn’t think anything bad would happen?” It paused, “shall I call you Alice?”

“Not funny!” I felt sick, “and no I didn’t, because you didn’t tell me, why would you lead me down a path, literally, that I can’t return from?”

“I didn’t lead you, you followed without questioning! There’s a difference, take some responsibility for your actions. #responsibetravel #responsiblelife.”

“Really?” I exclaimed, suddenly feeling cold, like I really was underwater. “Don’t you think that’s a bit insensitive? How were hashtags going to save me from certain doom?”

“But you humans love hashtags, it’s your favourite way to cover your ignorance with false virtue. #funinthesun, #beachcleanup, #thereisnoplanetb.”

“That’s one of my favourites,” I said absent-mindedly, my unconscious mind trying to ignore the hysterics of my conscious one, “I use it when I post about littering to the council’s Friendface page.” Was this really the time?

It eyed me with one beady eye?

“You take photos of litter?” Clyde seemed more interested in my green credentials than saving my life. Perhaps it was testing. Maybe this wasn’t hallucinations caused by food poisoning, and Clyde was my sub-conscious showing me the way out. Like that film Inception, but shorter.

Sure that I’d found a solution, I triumphantly announced, “Yes, we all need to reduce our carbon footprint.”

“By deferring responsibility to someone else, and at the same time duplicating your photo and using more power?”

My puffed out chest deflated, I stared at Clyde blankly, it continued.

“Digital photos still use power, which burns carbon. Wherever you store them, it’s on a server somewhere, that server needs power, and that power needs to burn carbon. Carbon that would have been reduced if you just picked up the litter and put it in the bin.”

“But I don’t drop litter,” I said, offended.

“Neither did the mouse that comes along one morning, mistake that litter for food, and poison itself to death.”

Clyde’s neck stretched right out, its beak pointed at me like an accusatory finger.

“Do you not see the problem?,” it asked, “it’s these modern unseen waste streams that you generate to provide yourself virtue and convenience.”

“I hardly think a server generates anything like the carbon of a power station,” I parried.

“But a million servers do.” It paused.

Clyde continued. “First it was oil in the seas, then sewage, then chopping down trees, and now every time you send your pointless selfies to someone else you need more power. It’s like you’re multiplying your own uselessness.”

Clyde was visibly agitated.

“Humans are just mucking it up for the rest of us.”

There was pause just quiet enough to hear the air whistle past a penny as it dropped.

“I never thought of it like that.”

Clyde stared at me with those beady eyes. Something shiny scuttled between us. A vape canister, where a hermit crab had made its home. It scuttled through the wall back into the sea.

And then, I felt cold, as realisation set in. Humanity’s unconscious ignorance. By solving its own human problems, finding work arounds to make human life better, we’d converted a the human health problem of smoking into a waste problem. Which the planet now had to deal with. And so many other things.

“We’ve really messed this up haven’t we.” I said quietly.

“You’re doomed. Today or tomorrow, the day after. You want change, but you don’t want to change to improve things.”

“My Dad used to say ‘the will must outweigh the want’.”

Clyde looked genuinely interested.

I continued, “A kid wants to jump in to a swimming pool, but to only want it, lets them walk away, afraid. Will, need assertion, conscious of effort to confront difficulty and fear. To succeed, knowing it’s hard.”

“Like a child jumping into a swimming pool knowing it could drown, but willing to put in the effort to try” offered Clyde.

“I nodded, “ then the kid kick their legs floats. They find the power is in them.”

“And they make the change,” said Clyde resolutely, squatting on the sand and ruffling his feathers, “my work here is done.”

“Is that it?,” I enquired, “how long until I drown at the bottom of the sea?”

“I don’t know,” it replied, voice straining.

“But you said…” I trailed off.

“I didn’t say when,” Clyde chuckled, and I felt momentarily relived that I would survive.  It coughed, “I just needed you to see the truth. How you can help your kind to collectively get out of this mess. Will, effort and kicking hard.” Clyde’s eyes closed.

“You’re just going to sleep?”

“No,” Clyde’s voice strained, “I’m going to die.”

“What?” I yelled, fresh fear flooding my body, “what about me? Will this place collapse? How long have I got?”

“Start kicking!” opening one eye, “or start running.”

I took one step, then stopped abruptly. A rumbling above me made my heart beat out my chest. “Before I go, what’s with the rainbow beak?”

“It’s just paint. I found it in a dustbin. Makes me look more relatable.” Clyde chuckled which turned into wheezing.

“Great,” I shouted, “seems kind of pointless reason for me to die!”

“Now you know how the animals feel.”

And with that Clyde stopped breathing.

The rumble above me grew louder. I looked up as a drop of water fell right between my eyes and the thin line of the sky disappeared.

I started running, knowing what I had to do, knowing how to make change. I took a deep breath as the chasm collapsed and I started kicking.

That was a month ago.

I remembered a documentary about stranded divers controlling their breathing, ascending slowly to avoid the bends. And somehow I made it to shore, gasping and thankful as I crawled up the beach knowing what I must do.

I surmised never to eat fish and chips again. Won’t go near them, not since that dodgy portion gave me food poisoning and I started hallucinating. Now I eat salads #healthylifestyle.

And now as I sit here staring out to sea again on my lunch break, I remember that day with my seagull mentor, and laugh at the ridiculousness of it. #feelingbetter

END