The Littoral State

"Not like that, Townie," Scrimshaw's voice was a gravelly rasp, worn smooth by sea wind and cheap cigarettes. "You're fighting it. You can't fight the salt. You gotta work with it." The old man took the wire strippers from Finn's hand. His fingers, though gnarled with arthritis, were deft. He stripped the corroded copper wire, his movements economical, practiced. "Everything out here is temporary. The rides, us, this mud. The trick is to make it beautiful while it lasts."

Finn watched him, mesmerised. Scrimshaw was the oldest of the carnies, his face a roadmap of long summers and hard luck. He had no other name. No one here did. There was Jett, who ran the waltzer; Mirela, the Romanian fortune teller; Rook, the silent man who operated the generator. They were named for what they did, or what they found, or what they were. They were verbs, not nouns.

"Back home," Finn started, then stopped. He’d been trying to stop saying that. 'Back home' was a different country.

"Back home, you solder a wire and expect it to last forever," Scrimshaw finished for him, not looking up. "Land-locked thinking. Out here, we know the tide will win. The salt will win. So we use grease, we use tape, we make it good for the season. We build it to be taken apart."

He handed a roll of thick, greasy electrical tape to Finn. "Your knot."

Finn fumbled, then began the complex twist and loop Scrimshaw had taught him. A knot used by sailors and carnies, a way to bind things securely but in a way that could be undone with a single, specific pull. A temporary permanence.

He was getting better at it. He was getting better at a lot of things. How to sleep through the generator's roar. How to tell by the cry of a gull if the weather was turning. How to eat standing up in three minutes flat. He was shedding his townie skin, the part of him that worried about exam results and what people thought. Here, you were judged only by whether you could pull your weight. He liked that. It felt clean.

The High Water Mark

A flash of blue and red light against the grey sky made them both look up. A police cruiser was navigating the bumpy track that led from the road to the edge of the flats. It stopped, its tyres sinking slightly into the soft ground. The passenger door opened and a man got out. Finn's father.

Finn’s stomach went cold. His father looked utterly alien here, a creature of pavement and lawn, with his pressed trousers and clean shoes. He stood stiffly by the car, his arms crossed, a portrait of disapproval.

Scrimshaw put a hand on Finn's arm. It was light, but firm. "That'd be your anchor, I take it."

Finn just nodded, the sledgehammer suddenly heavy in his hand.

"Finnian! Get over here right now!" His father's voice didn't carry well over the wind, but the tone was unmistakable.

He didn't move. Scrimshaw didn't either. They just stood there, two figures in a landscape of mud and steel, watching the man from the other world.

"He doesn't get it," Finn said quietly. "He thinks you're all… grifters. He thinks I'm throwing my life away."

"Maybe you are," Scrimshaw said, his eyes on the distant figure. "And maybe you're finding a new one. Depends on your definition of 'life'. His is about roots. Ours is about routes."

The policeman got out of the car now, a big man whose uniform seemed too tight. He conferred with Finn's father, then they both started walking across the mud, their careful steps a stark contrast to the easy, rolling gait of the carnies.

"You don't have to choose yet, kid," Scrimshaw said, his voice low. "You can go back with him. Finish school. No one will hold it against you. This life isn't for everyone."

But Finn knew he was wrong. He did have to choose. He could see it in his father's rigid posture, in the hard set of his jaw. This was an ultimatum. The world of solid ground had come to claim him. He looked from his father's face to Scrimshaw's. One was a map of a life he was supposed to live, every street and landmark already laid out. The other was a compass, offering only a direction, a way to navigate the tides.

He felt the first hint of a breeze coming off the sea, cool and damp. The water was turning. Soon, it would begin its slow, inexorable crawl back across the flats, erasing the footprints of the day, demanding that everything be ready to move or be drowned.