Dennis Demolition: The Shell

I found it in a skip on the Castleton Road.

I wasn't looking for a shell.

I was looking for the right kind of bracket that I need for this thing I'm building, which I won't go into right now because the point is the shell.

But I was in the skip and there it was, mostly buried under some insulation and what I think used to be a kitchen cabinet.

I got it out because you get things out when you find them.

That's the rule.

It was big. Battered a bit on one side. Kind of grubby. I poked it. Turned it over. Rubbed the ick off the outside with my rag — the rag is kind of oily but it's fine, the ick came off — and had a proper look at it.

Heavy for the size. Good weight.

Something in the shape of it that was interesting.

I sniffed it.

Smells like the sea a bit. And something older than the sea.

I turned it over again. Ran my thumb along the ridges. Held it up.

Put it to my ear.

OH!

(I nearly dropped it. I caught it. It jumped again. I caught it again. It really seemed like it wanted to go. Caught it a third time. Held on.)

THE HARBOUR IS IN THERE!

George's harbour. The water sound of it. The going and going and not stopping even when you're not listening. It was just — in there. Inside the shell.

HOW DID IT GET IN THERE?

I looked at the shell for a bit.

I looked at the skip.

I looked back at the shell.

I went to the harbour to check it was still there.

(I know. It seems a bit daft now. But I had to check.)

The harbour was still there.

Rocks, water, sky, the whole lot. Not sucked inside a tiny shell-shaped portal.

Still going. Fine.

Nah, I thought. That's not it.

Hmm.

I took the shell down to the water.

Put it in to clean it properly — the rag got the outside but there was stuff in the ridges still, and you clean a thing properly if you're bringing it to someone, that's just right.

And when the water got into it the colours came out.

Not sparkly. Not twinkly. Not like Maude, nothing like Maude.

Something smaller. Something more — quiet about it. The light getting in and finding something there that wasn't visible before and then just... sitting in it.

Not shouting about it.

Just ... there.

Kind of George-sized, that colour.

I held it up and looked at it for a bit.

Huh.

I didn't dry it with the rag.

I set it on a rock and let it dry in the air. And the sun.

Which also works, without needing electric or anything. Really clever, eh?

And I sat there for a while.

Trying to figure out why this is George's place.

I still ... don't really know.

There's no gubbins I can find. No parts. No blueprint. No springs or brackets or things that need fixing. The water just ... goes. The rocks are just there. The sky does the sky thing. Nothing's broken. Nothing needs improving. Nothing's asking to be taken apart and understood.

(I don't know what to do with that, if I'm honest.)

But.

I looked at the rocks and the shells and the green fluffy stuff and the water and the sand and the way they all just — sit there together. Like friends. Not because someone designed it. Not because someone worked out the load-bearing or the tolerances or the right angle for the thing.

They just belong together.

And somehow they make the sound in the shell.

I don't know how.

But I nodded to myself, because sometimes you don't need to know how.

Sometimes the thing is just the thing and that's enough.

Right then.

The shell had dried by the time I was done thinking.

Air and sun. No electric needed.

I picked it up.

Listened.

It still had the harbour in it.

I hadn't broken it.