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Padanaram: A Short Story
“You can’t just talk it away,” Sarah said, her voice barely rising above the sound of the waves.
“I’m not trying to talk anything away. I’m just…existing, trying to—”
It was a fruitless effort to revisit places that once held joy, as if the location itself had any real bearing on her happiness. Yet deep down, she knew this desire to return was all they had, a sort of faith she felt unworthy of. Still, here she was, putting on a façade; faking it was the only way to keep the unsettling memories at bay. So there they were, two people wandering through the same patterns, waiting for change that never seemed to come.
“The beach?” Mark suggested, breaking the silence. “What about that little beach with the broken chairs?”
“Yes,” Sarah replied, her heart lifting at the thought.
They strolled the three blocks to the shore, and she felt a rush of relief when she discovered the chairs were gone. They settled on the grass as he began to ramble about real estate, a topic that always seemed to dominate their conversations. “It always comes down to real estate,” he lamented. “They’ll ruin this place, too.” His disdain for the wealthy was palpable, almost as intense as his yearning for the cash he never managed to grasp, and she found herself charmed by his unabashed hypocrisy. It made sense to her—resenting what you wished for felt human. He was now blaming the rich for the chairs’ disappearance, claiming they were always meddling with things that were perfectly fine, ruining everything they touched.
For Sarah, the absence of the chairs symbolized a shift between then and now, and she appreciated their absence, whether it was due to the wealthy or not. “It’d be nice to break some new chairs and leave them here,” Mark joked.
She looked out at the water, at the bobbing sailboats, and spotted a peculiar boat that resembled a floating doghouse. It was a comforting sight, and she nearly pointed it out to Mark but hesitated, fearing that acknowledging it might somehow cause it to disappear. She felt grateful that while the chairs had vanished, the doghouse boat remained. Yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that mourning the past was entirely valid; this moment wasn’t what she had hoped for.
The damp grass soaked through her sundress, and she thought about later, when they would retreat to the little hotel next to the yacht club. The thought of intimacy was a welcome distraction, a way to vent her frustrations at him—his endless chatter that seemed to drown everything else out. She had always enjoyed hotel encounters, where she could leave behind her worries, both about him and the universe. The idea of a watchful deity made sense to her now; it was comforting in a twisted way.
“Not in the mood for fish?” he asked, as if reading her mind. “Why not? Last time…”
The boats bobbed gently on the water, their silhouettes framed by the land that hugged the bay like a crooked arm.
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Summary
In this reflective piece, Sarah grapples with the complexities of her relationship with Mark while revisiting a beach that once brought her joy. Through their conversation, we glimpse her internal conflict and the sense of loss she feels regarding the changes in their surroundings and their lives. The story captures the tension between desire and reality, exploring themes of hope, hypocrisy, and the search for meaning in familiar places.