The Glinting Seascape

Let's see! says Terence.

Margaret turns.

Terence!

The rare cockle, says Terence.

Here, says Wittgenstein, I'm just chipping it out.

The rare cockle fossil drops to the sand and Margaret retrieves it.

Anadaria trapezia, says Margaret. They no longer populate southern Australian waters. See, Terence. Once this was the home of a living creature. A blood cockle.

Terence looks.

How did it get out, the blood cockle?

How did it get in, for that matter? And where is it now?

He is about to ask these three questions when he remembers what Gaius once said about Margaret.

A waffler.

So Terence thinks he will skip these three questions and ask about feathers.

Have you seen....? begins Terence.

But Margaret has put two and two together.

If Terence is here, so is Gaius.

Did Gaius bring you? asks Margaret.

Yes, says Terence. But...

Good, says Margaret, heading back to the campsite.

She took your cockle, says Terence.

It was never my cockle, says Wittgenstein.

You can get another one, says Terence. You've still got the hammer.

My heart is not in it, says Wittgenstein.

I'll do it, says Terence.

Wittgenstein is not used to young people, even cement ones. He hands Terence the hammer.

Terrence whacks at the limestone.

Steady, says Wittgenstein.

Bash-bash-fush, out drops a fossil. What is it?

Looks like a Pintada carchariarum, or pearl oyster.

Bash-bash-fumm! Out drops a gastropod, a Euplica bidentata

Crack! Flup. A large benthic foraminifer, or Marginofora vertebratis.

These are rubbish, says Terence.

Wittgenstein isn't so sure they are rubbish. But Margaret has run off on the expectation of seeing Gaius. Just RUN OFF! It's insupportable. What does he do with the hammer? And the infant!

He sits down in the sand.

Ow. He shifts slightly, having sat on a broken fossil.

Have you seen a red neck avocet? asks Terence.

Ha ha, laughs Wittgenstein. It wouldn't be red now, would it? What colour was the blood cockle? What colour is every damn thing in this limestone?

Cream, says Terence. But that's because we're not looking.

Not looking! cries Wittgenstein.

For birds, says Terence. Let's do that now. Birds with red feathers.

Why do you wish to find birds with red feathers? asks Wittgenstein.

For my potato, says Terence.

Wittgenstein looks at Terence. He looks at the sand. He looks at the glinting seascape. Perhaps he has sunstroke. He should have worn a hat.

Come on. I'll bring the hammer, says Terence.

He plods down to the water's edge, where several shorebirds are foraging.

Wittgenstein follows.

The shorebirds are common greenshanks and curlew sandpipers.

Crunch crunch.

They look up.

WHERE ARE THE REDNECK AVOCETS? shouts Terence. I'M SICK OF THIS!

The shorebirds are unimpressed.

Until they see the hammer.