Return to New Arden

Second Skin

It all started with the junk shop. Perhaps calling it a junk shop is a little unfair, it is called the Flotsam and Jetsam and is half junk shop, half antique store. Some items in there are very expensive and others are very cheap. I'm not a wealthy person and so I go in there looking for cheaper items. I like things that are a little unusual and might have a story to them. New Arden is a seaside town and so there is something of a nautical theme to the F&J. You never know what might wash up there.

It was a Saturday afternoon when I found it. I was wandering among the usual brikabrak of the shop, picking up fancy shells from the tropics, eyeing ships in bottles and turning over pieces of old nautical equipment. In the glass cabinets I spied a piece of scrimshaw delicately pierced with the picture of a ship cresting the waves, the price tag made me take in a breath. I moved to the back of the shop and started leafing through the old books there and then I moved on to the second hand clothing.

Surprisingly it was here I found my prize, it was a shawl and it was clearly the hide of a seal. It felt smooth and soft beneath my touch as if it had only just come off the animal. It wasn't even cut in anyway but had the shape of the animal. I took it off the rack and went into a changing room where I draped it around myself admiring its uniqueness. There was no way of telling how old it was, it could even date back to this town's own dark history of clubbing seals. I know these days there is a general disapproval of wearing fur but there was no going back for this seal and at least with me it had someone who appreciated it history and all.

There was no price tag on the skin so I had to take it to the front counter where Bethany the sales girl tried to figure one out.

"I don't really know about this, how does five dollars sound?"

"Yes I'll take it, I wonder, do you know where it came from?"

Bethany wrinkled her nose,

"I think Tom Woods brought it in but I wouldn't go asking him Caroline."

I nodded, Tom Woods had a terrible reputation,

"I see him with that brow beaten wife of his sometimes."

"I wonder why she doesn't leave him."

We both sighed

I took the coast road home, I live out of town quite close to the ocean but set back from the cliffs. When I got home I slowly unwrapped my finds and decided how to fit them into the clutter I already have. My house is clean but it's packed with lots of little items. I think because I live alone this somehow gives me a sense of safety and companionship. It has been many years since my husband's death. I'm not quite a hoarder but my house is too busy for most people's tastes.

It felt strange to hang the seal skin up in a closet so instead I laid it on my bed like it was a comforter. That night a storm blew up and after shutting everything up I crawled into bed and tried to go to sleep despite the howling of the wind. It wasn't as hard as I imagined. I found myself quickly drawn down into unconsciousness. Once there strange dreams began to surface. I dreamed I was a seal winding my sleek body in among the kelp playing with others of my kind. I woke in the middle of the night and went for a glass of water. The second round of dreams were more disturbing, I dreamed that I was naked for all the world to see, that somehow I had lost something precious to me and was very sad.

I woke up feeling restless and tired. The next night my dreams kept on revolving round these themes but I could not think of any connection in my life that would cause them. My losses were all in the past. On the third night I tried an experiment. I folded up the seal skin and put it away in a cupboard and peace returned to my sleep. I could have left it there but I'm a curious person so I tried to sleep with it on the bed again and as before I found myself plunged back under the ocean swimming with the seals. After all my searching through the junk shop it seemed I had finally found something magical, I decided I would have to find out more.