Le père éternel

Kobo liked getting postcards. But she thought this one from Lavender was offensive. She wrote back at once.

dear lavender this picasso is offensive!!! don't get mme wrong it is not the wommen running. no lavender it is the SAND!! i am a connoisseur of sand just ask ageless and sommething is very wrong with this it is not proper sand. you say you think it looks like concrete, mme i think it looks like a collapsing canvas tent. i don't know how picasso ever got fammmmous painting sand like that!!!

but oh how lovely it would be you and mmme running on the sand as long as it was proper sand i prommise you one day soon i will get mmy new eyes in but i have not been anywhere for a long timmmme lavender i mmight not even remmmemmmber how to run on anything. and we could not hold hands

now dear what was it you asked mme about sophie???

sophie goes back to the cemmmetery every summmer. now she is twenty years old and the old mman who is the guardian of the cemmetery is ten years older too. she still leaves mmystifying letters on her daddy's grave. they mmystify mme too. and she still has daddy issues. she drives her mummmmy's new husband away by very bad behavior. she doesn't have a boyfriend but she does like older mmen. the story is called le père éternel. do you think it is religious lavender or psychological???

please dear next timmmme send mme the postcard of dora mmmmaar does she have bleeding fingers that's what i want to know what is the knife gammmme and is she pretty????

affectionately

your curious aunty kobo clammmm xx

Australia Day

dear kobo,,,,,,coff, coff,,,,,it's me,,,,,i've finished moulting!!!

clikclikclik,,,, oh let me start again i'm a bit nervous ,,,,,dear kobo,,,do you remember me???

yes i've finished moulting have you forgot your friend ageless,,,, ageless lobster????

i was thinking about you kobo all the time but yesterday i was at the beach,,,, haha you will be laughing,,,,,ha ha you will be saying,,,,he is always at the beach,,,,

i am, but yesterday,,,,,i thought you would like this story,,,,,

i was sitting on the beach just looking,,,,,,there were people everywhere and flags stuck in the sand red white and blue fluttering,,,,,,,

two japanese girls walked on to the beach from the sand hill track,,,,they looked left and right,,,,,they pointed,,,,,

they were thirteen years old i think in human terms,,,,clikclik,,,,when i looked again they were gone,,,,,,

i looked up the same two girls were coming down the sand hill track again looking to left,,,,, clikclik,,,, and to right and pointing,,,, one of them cried out,,,, there!!!!! and they started running,,,,,they ran towards a man and a woman,,,,,the man was laughing,,,,

the man was wearing black shorts and his upper body was white,,,,,,,one of the girls ran straight up to the man and hugged him round the waist and swung around him like a maypole with her two legs off the sand,,,,,,,

i thought about you kobo then,,,,,,,,

please write to me if you remember me i hope you liked my story there was sand in it yes,,,, but it is me who likes sand,,,,,, sorry clik,,,,,,, your friend ageless

Moulting

dear kobo i am sorry,,,,

i am sorry dear kobo i did not mean to be offensive we lobsters are like that,,, offensive,,, but i did not mean to be,,,,,

thank you for,,, clik clik,,, writing to me about the sand,,,,, does the man escape up the rope ladder and what happens to the sand they shovel up,,,,,where does it go?,,,,,do tell me more about the man and the woman i think of you and me being trapped together in a hole,,,i would not mind being trapped in a hole of sand with you kobo,,,,,,

but you might not like that,,,sorry,,,,,

and now clik clik i must tell you about the moulting it will not please you,,,,,kobo,,,oh,,, i will very soon be moulting,,,,,it is nearly clik clik time,,,,,

my flesh will shrink to a quarter of its size,,,oh oh,,, my shell will clik clik crack i will drag myself out,,,, if i am unlucky my claw muscles will get stuck,,,,,,and i will have to let them go,,,,,you see what this means kobo i will not be able to write to you for quite a while,,,,,,,

i'll soak up seawater to gain weight,,,,, i'll eat my shell,,,,it gives me calcium,,,,i'll be soft,,,soft,,,like a rubber toy,,,,,

well now i have told you kobo,,, i have started shrinking kobo,,,,,

tell me what happens next,,,,,,put cobbles in it,,,sorry,,,please,,,,,,

your ageless x

The Rope Ladder

ageless!

you are not mmy boyfriend ! and you will not be mmy boyfriend if you write about such things as mmmating indeed. mating. ugh. you go too far too fast mmmy ageless dear

i am a clam we do not mmate like that we do not touch one another that is why my sensibilites are offended by those things you tell me about mmating

nevertheless i am interested in mmoulting i wish i could mmoult i amm too long inside this hard and heavy shell if i could get out, if it would break open, i would be free to grow a new and pretty shell mmade of shell with little holes that let in all the light

tell me mmore about your mmmmoulting, ageless dear

and i will tell you mmore about the sand now,

....the womman's house is half buried under sand, sand falls on the roof at night the sand pours down in streams it gets into the water jug the cooking pots it sticks to the perspiring bodies of the mman and the womman, at night they dig the sand away the walls are soft like wet biscuit, in the mmorning they sleep, they place towels over their faces or the sand will get into their eyes and mmouths and noses it does anyway, the rope ladder has been taken away, the mman cannot escape, he forms a plan....

do you like it ageless ?

till next time,

kobo clamm x

Sand

dear ageless,

how funny you are you mmmake mme laugh it is a long time since anyone did that, i'm glad you would let me go and not eat me if you caught me if i was soft but you would have to find mme first,

so find mme.

i am pretty sure now i am on a window sill, you don't know what that is and that is funny too. let me tell you what a window sill is, imagine it as a kind of shelf,

on one side of the shelf is a chasm, or abyss, you know what that is don't you, at the bottom of the abyss is a hole. on the other side of the shelf is a window pane now that is a hard thing to explain.

a window pane is like a sheet of water that is solid, you can see through it but if you get up close to it your face will flatten and you have to stop.

perhaps that will help you to locate me i believe it will i hope so.

let me tell you now about the sand, sand is made of grains of sand they average one eighth of a mmillimetre in diameter, sand is not a liquid but you can sink in it and it can cover you up, mmy book is about hummans though

it is about an entommmmologist who is on holiday, he goes to an obscure seaside village the houses there are in deep holes filling up with sand the people have to dig the sand away each night. they trick the mman into going down a hole and then they take the rope ladder away so he is forced to help the womman dig....

no mmmore for today i will tell you mmmore if you like there are no cobbles in it but if you want i can put some in

please write back and tell mmme mmore about yourself do you have a girlfriend?

your friend

kobo clamm x

Cobbles

dear kobo ,,,,,,

,,,,,i can't stop clikking,,,,clikclik,,,,,please excuse me,,,,thanks for your reply,,,,

i do like sand yes,,,,, i would like to hear the story of the woman in the dunes although i like cobbles better,,,,, do you know one about cobbles?,,,,

no never mind just tell me the story of the sand,,,,, i do like sand especially,,,,, apart from cobbles i like it best much better than gravel,,,,i do,,,,

the reason i clik clik,,,like cobbles is they are a better place to hide ,,,,, you would know,,,, being a cobble yourself,,,,,oh i don't mean to be rude,,,o sorry kobo,,,,,you are much more than a cobble,,,

a lobster can lurk in cobbles i am a lobster i like to lurk,,, it is safer from predators there,,,,i don't suppose you have any predators ,,,no of course not,,,,ha ha,,,,silly me,,,,,

but you would laugh kobo to know that if you were a living clam one of your predators might clikclik,,,,be me,,,,i would let you go though yes i would,,,,,

i don't know how i am going to find you,,,,,, what is a window sill,,,,,, i have been asking around ,,,,i don't have many friends to ask,,,,i asked a prawn it said nick off,,,,clikclik,,,,,

but i will not give up,,,,, yes i am a boy i'm glad you are a girl although of course it doesn't mean anything,,,,, i am looking forward to the story of the sand from your own lips,,,,mmm

your friend,

ageless xx

The Clam Disarmed

dear ageless, if i may call you ageless,

how touched i was by your commmmunication of yesterday yes indeed i would like to mmeet you unfortunately i do not know where i reside,

until quite recently i did know but now i feel that i am somewhere else. previously i was on a beach i had emmmmerged at last after countless eons from my rock i was enjoying the sun and life was looking up.

i can only think i must have been picked up and transported by supernatural mmmeans to another plane. i hope you can find mme i would like you to. it may not be another plane it mmmay just be a window sill.

thankyou for complimenting me about my writing i read a lot. you would read a lot if you were stuck inside a fossilised shell like mmme. i do not have a pen name but you have made me want one i intend to have one i will take the name of kobo do you like it?

that is because of a book i am reading at the present called woman of the dunes it is all about sand. it is by a japanese writer called kobo abe. it is good i bet you would like it i will tell you about it if you like sand.

well better go now but let us be friends let us try to meet i am a girl by the way i think you are a boy yes?

not that i mmmean anything by that,

your friend,

kobo clamm

ps you were right about the lips, mm.

Jealousy

I don't know what to write about today. I'm jealous of Pliny the Elder. He came up with the Blue Devil Fish, the Chocolate Biscuits and the Volcanoes just like that without even thinking.......

Pliny saw what I was writing.

Come, come, he said. Anyone can come up with three things.

Yes, but you had a theme, I said.

I did? he said. What was it?

Food, I replied. Wasn't it?

Pliny looked doubtful. The Blue Devil fish is inedible, he remarked. I remember making a point of saying so.

Yes, you did, but to say something is inedible introduces the idea of food. One thinks, on reading it, Oh I was wondering whether people eat them or not. Now I know.

Alright, said Pliny. I concede that point. But what about volcanoes? They are not food.

Volcano cakes are, I said. You can't deny it.

I can't, agreed Pliny. But, if you remember, my intention had been to write about real volcanoes, not cakes. So my original list of topics was lacking a theme.

You are very encouraging Pliny, I said. I am going to think of three things.

Good, said Pliny.

There was a pause, then he said. Have you thought of them yet?

Yes, I said. Sand. That's the first one. Embroidery, that's the second... and.....Tuesday.

You see, said Pliny. It's easy. And, he added, I'm looking forward to Tuesday.

The Irrelevance of Patterns

Pliny the Elder raised an eyebrow.

What's this about the irrelevance of patterns? he asked.

Oh you noticed! I said.

Of course I noticed, he replied. I noticed you didn't explain it very well.

I can't explain it very well, I said. It's either nonsense or something very important. Do you want me to try again?

You may as well, he said.

Alright then. We humans are programmed to look for patterns, do you agree?

No.

Well, that's that then, I said, crossly.

No go on, for the sake of argument, said Pliny.

And yet the pattern has no meaning in itself. It's just the irrelevant trace of a process, I continued.

I assume you are thinking about ripple patterns in the sand, said Pliny.

Yes. The patterns are formed by the, um, well, whatever sand patterns are formed by.

The sea, said Pliny kindly, and the wind, and the tides, and occasionally eels.

Eels! Pliny, now I've lost my thread.

The patterns are formed by natural processes, prompted Pliny.

Yes. And when we see the patterns, we wonder how they were made.

In that case they are not irrelevant, said Pliny, gravely.

I'm just saying, I said, that the important things are the sea and the tides and the winds and the eels, and it wouldn't matter at all whether their actions made a pattern or not. Everything would still be exactly the same.

Except for the pattern, said Pliny. But I thought you liked patterns. Why are you trying to negate them?

I'm not. I'm just trying to see them for what they really are.

I don't think you have, said Pliny.

At the Interface

Another hot day. We went to Semaphore. We thought we might go in the water, and wore our swimming things just in case.

The sand was hot. We took off our shoes. How then had we known that the sand was hot? They were not proper shoes.

The sea was tepid and green. Fat people bobbed in the shallows. Three ladies and a man in a stockman's hat. Nine seagulls flew southwards over their heads. Eleven terns flew north. Perhaps I have remembered this wrong.

The terns looked like seagulls wearing unconvincing black hairpieces. Thirty nine of them stood on the shore. Something was afoot.

We walked towards the Semaphore jetty, in the water up to our knees. The middle of the jetty was missing. This was new. Boys were jumping off at the gap, and clambering up the other side. We could see them, in the distance.

Two yachts, on the near horizon, with cream and grey sails like moths' wings, seemed to touch one another lightly.

I looked down at the water and was shocked to see lines of Japanese calligraphy. It was seaweed, tiny brown and black pieces like brushstrokes, floating on the surface of the water. They said, if I read them correctly: Here is the interface, here, and here, and here.

We took the plunge. Immersed ourselves in the sea. It was cold, because our skin was hot. We gasped. And wallowed. Only the interface matters.

I flapped my hands under the water which moved like jelly.

Sand; Ampersand; Pearl

1. Sand.

We went to the beach twice on the weekend. On Saturday we went to Tennyson. The sand was white and soft and hot. I took off my shoes. The sand was already inside.

The sand was broken and in disarray. A horse had galloped over it. There is a special way of telling that. It is by the marks of the horse's shoes.

The sand was ugly. It looked as though a battle had been fought there. Smashed and bashed.

Heaps of seaweed had fetched up on the sand at regular intervals. Each heap looked like something. A lobster, a duck, a fish, a giant bee, laid flat out.

Under the water the sand was squelchy and sucked at our feet.


2. Ampersand.

On Sunday we were at Brighton. It was a very hot afternoon. The tide was coming in; there was not much sand to stand on, near the rocks north of the jetty.

A party of people stood between the rocks and the sea at the end of a ramp. They looked peculiar. They stood in an informal arrow formation. At the apex, an old lady in a wheelchair, shaded by a yellow and brown fringed parasol. We thought it might be a wedding. A funny wedding.

We went down the steps to the beach south of the jetty. Here there was plenty of sand. The sand was soft and white and hot. I took off my shoes but the sand was already inside.

We finished our walk. I put on my shoes. It was half past four.

Grandma, the wheelchair and parasol had gone. The rest of the party were still there, laughing. I knew that it wasn't a wedding.

At eight thirty we were driving home in the car. I was aware of the sand. The irritating sand. I thought that when I got home there might be pearls between my toes, although toes are not oysters.


3. Pearl.

That is not to say the human body is incapable of producing a pearl. I know that it is. Once, one came out of my leg. To be truthful it wasn't really a pearl. More like a perfectly round tiny grey stone.

Had it been a real pearl, I'd have kept it.

Three Hats

The following morning they went for a walk on Goolwa Beach. There was a strong breeze and they followed it, wearing three hats between them.

Pliny saw many wondrous items that had been thrown up on the shore. Orange peel sponges and mandarin skins, giant polished beetle polyps, fans traced on the sand by wind with a seaweed pen, scarlet and purple striped sea urchins with white stitched borders and toothless holes, spherical balls of fine weedstring, and long ones shaped like turds.

Turning back into the wind they were faced with low streams of fine dry sand passing between their legs like time lapsed clouds. It was quite unpleasant.