Writer D

Cold rain mingled with warm tears as Jamie ran. His white t-shirt clung to his skin, becoming almost transparent in the grey sheets of rain. His heart pounded in his temples. Jamie was not a runner.

What had the message said? “Come to the beach Jamie. I have a message for you. Love Papa.” And the postscript at the bottom, “Please hurry before it washes away.” Two decades of hurt and questions erupted like lava from a volcano. Jamie had never known his father. And he couldn’t afford to want to. He had to be strong for his little sister, Jessie.

Now he didn’t have to be strong, he had to be fast. But his tears slowed his down. Angry at them, he bit his lip and bent his head into the rain. Cars whizzed past on the narrow highway above the sea, and he silently begged them not to stop and ask if he needed help. Ha! Jamie had to laugh at himself at that thought. Boy did he need help! His little sister was sick, his mother gone, and somehow strange messages were showing up on their doorstep.

Finally, the beach was in view. Jamie scrambled down over the guardrail, slipping down the slippery wet rocks to the sand below. There were definitely some letters down the beach, but he couldn’t make anything out yet.

The sand made him infuriatingly sluggish, and his heart felt like it would burst. Just as his body gave out, Jamie collapsed in front of the message.

The letters had washed away more from the rain than the tide. Jamie took a painful breath and rose to make out what he could. “I love you,” was all that was left. There had clearly been more, but that was all he could still make out.

“What do you want from me!” Jamie screamed into the deafening rain. What had he missed? Why did he care so much? Jamie kicked a rock, instantly doubling over from the pain, and fell to his knees before the words.

“I love you.”

Writer B

In the magical land of Dorflindia, Jamie and his lady-love Rebecca live as all Dorflindians do: They wake up, eat their breakfasts, go to their jobs, leave their jobs, and enjoy their evenings quietly together. And, of course, they go to extraordinary lengths to communicate to one another where their lodgings for that coming evening will be.

Dorflindians, you see, change their lodgings every night, an activity that is mildly complicated by the fact that Dorflindians are also, to the last one, mute.

For the single Dorflindian this poses no great problem, as he can merely move on to the lodging of his choice as he sees fit. But for lovebirds like Jamie and Rebecca, there is much to be communicated, with only limited ways to communicate it.

This may seem like a crazy way to live to you or to me, but think how crazy we must appear to them: staying in the same location for years on end, and then yammering on and on about it when the time comes to actually move. No, the Dorflindians are very happy with their simple-yet-complicated way of life, and they figure out how to make it work.

Many Dorflindian couples make use of a system of sign language, but Jamie and Rebecca refused to do this, as Rebecca’s mother had been tragically killed in a sign language accident. Some couples simply opt to write to one another on paper, but someone had once written something cruel about Jamie, so he and his love boycotted this means of communication as well.

After a long time of trying one form of communication after another, they finally landed on this — Jamie got to pick their new lodgings every other day, and he would communicate the new location to Rebecca with sky-writing. And, on the off-days, she picked the new location, and communicated it to him via writing in the sand. There was a certain romance to this system that kept things exciting in their relationship, and they were both very content with it.

They were both content with it, that is, until today. Today was Rebecca’s turn to choose, and she had faithfully made her way to their usual beach and written “cave to the left of the old oak, behind the baker’s shop” into the sand. She had then traipsed along to the cave, there to await her darling Jamie.

Jamie, however, had become distracted on the way to the beach. He had seen some friends signing to one another, and had observed that one was about to inadvertently slap another in the face with their wild gesticulations, and, having flashbacks to his mother-in-law’s accident, he went charging over to intervene.

In the confused, angry, very demonstrative, and silent argument that ensued, Jamie lost all track of time, and by the time he left the group of friends (who did not seem so thankful for his intervention as he felt they ought), the moon was already climbing into the sky, and he realized in a panic that the tide would surely be coming in by now.

He ran to the beach, feet pounding the pavement, heart pounding in his chest. If he didn’t see the message, how would he know where to find his love?

As he approached the beach he saw that the tide was indeed coming in, but he could just make out some lettering still remaining in the sand. He approached frantically, and read “cave to the left o…”

Cave to the left-o, he thought confusedly to himself. He whipped around, remembering that there were indeed caves in the vicinity of this beach. He began to wander around them, wondering to the left of WHAT?

AND WE’LL NEVER KNOW IF HE REBECCA EVER FOUND EACH OTHER AGAIN (because I ran out of time)

Writer A

Jamie the Seagull was late to Crab Beach. He had spent the evening scavenging a very busy beach further north along the Pacific, and had got caught up people-watching with his buddies, Dirk and Dexter. They’d been having a fine time, roaring with seagull laughter at some of the swimsuits and some of the people inside the swimsuits, when Jamie suddenly realized the tide was coming in. He said a hurried goodbye and took off at full speed for Crab Beach.

Fred the Crab, meanwhile, was in his cave, feeling extremely nervous. He kept glancing out to see if Jamie had arrived. Fred and Jamie were friends, sort of. They’d never had a conversation face-to-face, because Fred was so extremely shy. But Jamie started dropping in at Crab Beach a few months ago and caught sight of Fred once scuttling into his cave, and started lazily chatting to him.

Jamie the Seagull sat on the sand outside Fred’s cave, going on and on, in a lazy way, describing a crab in a beautiful pink shell he’d once spotted on a nearby beach.

“You should meet her,” Jamie had said. “You’d like her. She was shy just like you. Hey, I tell you what, I could send her a message for you. Just tell me what to say.”

Fred had not, of course, ventured out of his cave. But the next day, when Jamie arrived, Fred had written a message in the sand.

“Tell the crab in the pink shell I say hello,” his message read.

Jamie was thrilled to carry on the crab romance between beaches. It was great fun for him. Every day there were messages in the sand, and Jamie faithfully took them back and forth. The pink crab’s name was Tina.

Today, Fred sat nervously in his cave, waiting for Jamie to come along and read this message in the sand:

“Tina, I love you. If you love me too, send Jamie back with a shell in his beak.”

Fred had good reason to be nervous. For he had decided that if Tina sent the sign that she loved him, Fred would ask Jamie to fly him on his back to Tina’s beach! As you can imagine, this was a marvelously brave thing for Fred. His little crab heart was pounding in his chest. Did she love him? If she did, he would have to undertake a terrifying journey on a seagull’s back! He might not survive it! But what if she didn’t?

There, at last, was Jamie! He alighted on the beach, read the words, shouted “bravo!” towards Fred’s cave, and was off.

Jamie sped through the air toward Scuttle Beach, where Tina lived. He landed, and shouted toward her cave: “Tina, dear, Fred wants you to know that he loves you! Good news, eh? Right, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Jamie flew away, unaware that the tide had washed out all but the first line of Fred’s message!

Writer C

It had been drizzly all day, and when Jamie pulled into her parking stall at the law office, the asphalt glistened with little iridescent oil splotches. She stepped out of her white sedan, and closing the door with her foot, she made her way across the parking lot like a well trained circus performer, carrying armfuls of paperwork, and Ms. Whitfield’s 3 o’clock Triple, Venti, Soy, No Foam Latte. In heels no less.

As she slipped into the building, she made her way to Ms. Whitfield’s office, put her ear to the door, tapped twice and entered.

“Your coffee, Mrs. Whitfield.”

Ms. Whitfield looked up from her work, her eyes shot just above her red-framed glasses, cataracts glistening.

“Thank you dear,” She said.

Jamie nodded and then laid the armful of paperwork on Ms. Whitfield’s desk, straightening the edges of the file folders. “Here are the cases you asked for.”

Ms. Whitfield, looking back down at her current paperwork, simply said, “Mm-hmm,” which was Jamie’s cue to exit immediately.

She walked past several cubicles until she got to her office – her nook – as she liked to call it. There on her desk was a bouquet of chrysanthemums and a tiny envelope with her name on it. She smiled. She didn’t have to open the card to know whom it was from. She plucked the card from the plastic prongs that held it and ran her hands over the hand-written name. She turned it over and began to peel back the edges, but her phone rang, and she quickly shoved it into her blazer pocket. It’d have to wait.

That morning, like many other mornings, Jamie had gotten up before her husband (before the sun for that matter) to leave for work. On her commute, she spent time in her own head, trying to convince herself that liked her job. She had worked so hard for the internship, and was now actually getting paid. In the whole wild adventure of it all, some things in life had gotten lost, but her husband was the one constant that had remained. The flowers were a reminder that she was known. Ms. Whitfield may not have known it was her birthday (in fact, did she even know Jamie’s name?), but Carl knew her birthday, knew her favorite flower, knew that she liked jam – no butter – on her toast, and that country music made her feel oddly self-conscious.

As her day came to a close, she could hardly concentrate on her final phone call, staring at the flowers and nearly twitching to finally get home.

I couldn’t finish it! Waah! But you guys…the end was going to be AMAZING!! 😉

This was our prompt:

Jamie’s running late to read the message in the sand before the tide comes in… – 20 minute challnge