Amoco Cadiz
by Kate Brown
She'd liked the name of the tanker. The Amoco Cadiz. Apart from practicing to be a newsreader, Sarah liked the sound of words for themselves. She also liked the idea of helping baby birds and dragged her twelve year old sister, Mary, down to the beach intending to force her into the role of assistant. But baby birds so heavy with oil they couldn't move, baby birds that were dying, didn't make Sarah feel the way she'd thought they would. The birds were ugly, not just with oil, but with fear. She mooched back up into the village to hang around outside the buvette. Mary was the one who plunged her hands into the oil and rescued anything that moved.
Sarah pretended to go with her sister and help on the beach. Their parents wouldn't let Mary go alone. Sarah hung out with two French boys she'd met the day before. One of them took her on the back of his moped. If you didn't go too close to the beach, you couldn't see the oil and you could pretend you couldn't smell it. On the back of the moped, Sarah decided that this was what it was like to feel happy. Coming back to the village, an ambulance overtook them, nearly knocking them off the narrow road. Sarah still felt happy.
The ambulance was parked right beside the beach. The door slammed shut. It sped away as fast as it had come. The siren wailed, hurting Sarah's head. She sneezed and rubbed her eyes. The old lady who ran the buvette stepped towards her, out of the crowd. She tried to put her arms around her. Sarah ran. The smell of oil reached up and grabbed at her throat. She started to retch.
An oil soaked cormorant was perched on a rock, looking out to sea. Sarah sat down beside it. It hopped a step away from her but it couldn't flap its wings to fly. The two halves of its beak were stuck together with tar. Sarah picked the cormorant up, put it on her lap, and stroked it. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She stroked the bird harder and harder, wishing it would purr, like a cat.
a story of glorious small moments: "Sarah still felt happy." and what a last paragraph: wow. i like how you build sarah's character her rather than giving in to letting her be an extra in a drama. very well told and sad.
I agree with Marcus, the focus here is on character building against the trauma of the setting. Nice.
I like the attention to phrasing, Kate -
"The ambulance was parked right beside the beach. The door slammed shut. It sped away as fast as it had come. The siren wailed, hurting Sarah's head. She sneezed and rubbed her eyes. The old lady who ran the buvette stepped towards her, out of the crowd. She tried to put her arms around her. Sarah ran."
- very visual. Lots of energy. Good piece.
Kate, this is NOT an oil story. I spent a lot of time in Texas, worked in the industry for a while, and pretty much loathe 'oil' stories because so many of them are pretentious and cliche.
Your story, however, is about something else entirely. It's about people. It's original, believable and stunning. You've employed the use of ommission in a way that is every bit as dramatic as the silences between notes in the very best of music.
If I could, I'd give it a fave+.
...omission...
Well done, Kate. Nice descriptions and characterizations.
I like how you bring your MC to life for us by showing her practicing to be a new reporter and then feeling overwhelmed with emotion when she actually is one and faced with a story that breaks her heart. The final image is very cinematic, but the fact she wishes the bird would purr like a cat says a lot more - she wishes to make it happy...it is perhaps too far gone for that.
This is a well told story and I look forward to reading more of your work.
Ah, this is so good and so sad. It literally made me pain inside reading with your descriptions about the poor birds. Heartbreaking.
I also really like the comparison between the sisters - how the original who wanted to help, realizes she's afraid. Very relatable...
Great story.
wonderful, all of it, and oh that last image! *
Kate, I really admire the care and skill that went into the building of this story. Not a joyful read, in one sense, but it's always a joy to read a well-told tale.
both painful and beautiful to read. and a perfect capture of the irony of this world, with the ones who cherish the idea of helping ending up leaving the scene for a joy ride, and the ones who plunge their hands into the dirt ending up being drawn into the drama.
"But baby birds so heavy with oil they couldn't move, baby birds that were dying, didn't make Sarah feel the way she'd thought they would. The birds were ugly, not just with oil, but with fear."
Beautiful work throughout. *
You really captured the oil tragedy so well in this sad-lovely story told in a straight forward manner. I like how you didn't spare Sarah, but told this in her strengths and weaknesses as a human being.
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What a beautiful, scary story. I'm haunted by how the things she is trying to save "didn't make Sarah feel the way she'd thought they would." Very wise. While you didn't spare Sarah, I feel compassionate toward her.