The waves crash at the shore, blurring the line between sand and water. The girl walks towards the sea, shoes in her hands. The sand feels damp underneath her feet. Her black, knee-length skirt flutters with the wind. The sun looks like a giant saffron ball on the horizon as it prepares to sink into the sea. The strands of the girl’s hair fly in every which way. She smoothens them, but when they stray-fly again, she ties them in a bun. Her naval peeks from behind the grey top, showing the tiny hoop-ring she wore on her pierced belly button.
Palm trees lining the shore sway. A small boy in a white t-shirt and tiny shorts, runs with small steps, laughing loudly. A woman in a blue saree hurries behind him.
The girl too was small once. Her father brought her to the shore every Sunday. She smiles, but the curve’s presence on her lips is brief. A sharp pain interrupts her ephemeral joy. She lifts her right foot to examine the heel. A broken half of a small conch shell has pierced it.
She winces and pulls the broken piece out.
“Don’t cry, it will be alright soon.” Dad’s voice echoes in her mind. He had lifted her up and carried her to the car on a similar occasion when she was young. The pain reminds her of him – the man who left the house in the middle of the night to live with another woman. Her heart feels as if it were in a washing machine dryer.
He had called her after five long life-changing years. A random number flashed on her phone screen.
“Hey, kiddo.” She recognized the voice in a flash. “How are you?” he asked. Her mind drew a blank. What should she say? I am fine, or no, I am not fine, I miss you like hell. Should she ask why he left them or if he has children with the “other” woman? She touched her belly button. She had gotten it pierced the day he moved out, thinking about what would annoy him the most.
“It’s me, Dad,” he spoke after a brief pause.
Her eyes watered. She was infuriated; she wanted to fight with him, shout at him, throw the vase on the floor, but all she did was shed tears. She disconnected the call without speaking, ashamed at her own vulnerability.
Why did he call? What does he want from me now? She had flung the phone on the bed. But a few sips of water and a broken nail paint bottle later, she picked up the phone again and wondered if she should call back.
What if he is sick? What if this is our last chance to connect?
That weekend, clutching the phone tightly, trying not to think of her mother, she dialed Dad’s number, but disconnected it before the call went through.
“Why did Dad leave?” “Where is he now?” “Does he not love us anymore?” “Does he not love me anymore.” Every question she asked Mum swirled in her mind. She sat on her bed and rocked back and forth for a long time before deleting his number from the call logs. Her belly button bled profusely that night.
Dad never called again.
She has crossed the damp sand and has walked into the sea now. Water touches her feet. The cooling sensation runs through her feet and thence through her entire body. She blinks back the lurking tears and looks for the little boy. The mother-son duo were sitting in a corner now, sharing a cotton candy – pink, woolly, wispy.
Her eyes feel stingy – Dad bought her cotton candies.
She looks away from them and studies the sand. A bigger conch shell, broken into bits probably by the sudden collision with the ground, lay a few steps away. She walks out of the water and puts her left foot on it, applying all the pressure she could summon.
Nazia Kamali is a reader, writer, and dreamer, who fell in love with writing at a young age. Her novel, The Woman Who Disappeared, will be released by Readomania Publishers in July 2026. She was a finalist for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s A.C. Bose Grant 2021. Her novella Multicoloured Muffler was published in the Rize Novella Anthology by Running Wild Press. Her shorter works can be found in magazines such as The Tint, FemAsia, Caustic Frolic, Rigorous, Café Lit, Authors Publish Magazine, Juste Literary, and 50-Word Stories.