It’s funny, what we remember. 

 

I couldn’t tell you a thing about my first day of preschool or elementary school. I can’t recall what the bus driver who took me to and from Westfield Elementary every morning for six years straight looked like. I don’t know which brand of cigarettes my dead grandfather, Ed, smoked. As I recall, neither of my brothers were born in a hospital delivery room. They simply appeared one day in the same house as me, bedrooms decorated, personal preferences established, a relationship with my parents unfurling as naturally as a puff of tobacco oozing out of Ed’s lips and ears (yes, I remember the guy could blow smoke out of his ears). 

 

What I do remember is being obsessed with staging intricate wars between the toys that slept inside my toy chest at night. Animals (elephants, zebras, camels, etc.) on one side, cyborgs and Street Sharks and army soldiers and Z-bots, Lego men, on the other side. I remember building the swingset behind my childhood home with my dad and brother, right next to the pair of massive apple trees which threw granny smiths all around the yard, attracting hornets, wasps, bees and anything else with a stinger. I remember watching The Neverending Story and The Pagemaster. I read Speak under the covers. I got car sick while tearing through another Redwall novel, Salamandastron. I remember writing the name of my first crush on my arm in permanent marker, and feeling the horror that gripped me when I realized it would take more than water to strip the ink away.

 

And then, of course, I remember the story of the seagull soup. 

 

Mr. Hoffman taught Sixth Grade Social Studies. I remember him. Mr. Hoffman was risible and rangy. A tall, bearded fella with a friar’s cut who’d spent the vast majority of his life in the public school system fighting the good fight. He coached basketball at Glen Crest Middle School. Over the months, we had developed a good rapport. I was a good student, and one of the better basketball players around town (this is pre-puberty, mind you). 

 

I don’t remember who else sat in that classroom with me. It was probably some combination of a Kim and a Mary Kate and a Grace, maybe an Alex and a Matt, perhaps a Mel, and more likely than not a Marcy or a Paige.

    

Once a week, Mr. Hoffman would gather the lot of us around and spin a yarn. He spoke from memory. He must have had an impressive memory, because his stories contained twists and turns, and lots of fleeting but important details. 

 

“Have any of you kids heard the story of the seagull soup?” Mr. Hoffman asked. He raised his hand, encouraging us to raise ours.

 

Nobody raised their hand.

 

“Good. Then this will be a new one for you.” He paused. “Before I start: Remember, if you want to join me on a trip to The Grand Canyon, the application is due next Tuesday. We’ll be camping. I’ll be driving the van. Only six of you are coming along with me. Got it?”

 

“Got it.” The chorus rang back.

 

“James returned to the wharf for the first time in many, many years.” Mr. Hoffman began. “As he walked along the boardwalk, he closed his eyes. He smelled the salt in the air. He caught hints of rust and shriveled barnacles, the glut of dead fish guts there behind the kitchen of Don Jules’s Dock Bar. James smiled. He had decided to make a haj.”

 

Mr. Hoffman looked up.

 

“You all remember what a haj is, right?”

 

We nodded our heads enthusiastically.

 

“Right. Well, this was a haj that lacked religious undertones. Anyway, James was seated on the outdoor deck of Don Jules’s Dock Bar. It was a sunny day–bright out, nice big old puffy clouds in the sky, not a hint of mugginess to be licked. He pored over the menu. When the waitress arrived, she asked James what he’d like to eat. 

 

“I’ll have the seagull soup.” James said. It had been quite a while since James had had seagull soup.

 

“Have you had seagull soup before?” The waitress asked James. 

 

“Oh yes, yes I have. But I haven’t had it since… since…”

 

“It’s okay, sir. You don’t have to tell me why you haven’t had seagull soup for quite a while. It can be your secret.”

 

“No. It’s not that.” James gazed out through hard, wisened eyes at the choppy sea squatting beyond the harbor. “Seagull soup saved my life.”

 

The waitress sat down and yelled out, “Morty! Send a seagull soup to table seven. On the house, please. Garnish it proper, alright?”

 

“Yes ma’am.” A shout from the depths of the kitchen resounded.

 

“What happened, sir?”

 

“James. You can call me James. And you might well ask.”

 

The waitress leaned forward in her chair.

​

"

​

"We were fishing, Captain Horn and Tony and I, way, way out. In uncharted territory. You know the bit. Well, suddenly, a storm rushed us. Totally unexpected. One minute the skies were as blue as ocean water, the next, a swirling, obsequious, grey gale went swirling and twirling all about us. The heavens opened up and God baled. He took that Divine hand of His and brought on a mighty mean tempest. Well, we were unprepared. The waves climbed their invisible turrets and folded over us, crashing with tremendous strength, sending seaspray cascading skyward, and into our eyes, and rocking the boat like a monster rattling a manger. We did everything we could to keep that little fishing boat afloat. But eventually, the engine coughed and expired. The lone masthead–puny as it was–broke away and was swept out into the hellish expanse. I thought for sure the three of us would be swallowed whole, Captain Horn and Tony and I. But… for some reason… why, we were spared. I awoke on a pebble-dusted beach, my head swimming with confusion, my body wracked with soreness–the dull and throbbing sort. Well, I stood and peered around. In the distance I saw Tony climbing to his feet. Further away, near the treeline, lay Captain Horn. Tony and I embraced one another and remarked upon our luck. What a miracle it was, to still be alive. Both of us were, more or less, in decent health. We were tired, and beat, and thirstier than a show pig at a mud concert, but by and by we couldn’t complain. Captain Horn however was in a sinister state. His leg had been badly gashed. One of his arms hung loosely from his shoulder socket–no doubt broken in many places. His eyes had been punched shut and his lips were quivering, chapped, and barely showing breath.”

 

“What are we going to do about Captain Horn?” I asked Tony.

 

“First, I suggest we find some water. Let’s drag Horn into the shade and then try and find a stream somewhere further inland.”

 

We drugged Horn by his two feet, he grunting with every small bump to the noggin the whole way, and then set to scouring the island for a stream. It took a few hours, but eventually, we found a small grotto tucked away in a secluded part of the jungle. Shady, curiously bug-free, and algae-bound, that grotto. The water was clear as ice. Well, we fashioned a bowl out of bark and stripped fronds and took it over to Horn so he could sip and relax.

 

The days went by. No help came for us. We were forced to put our survival instincts to work.

We managed to erect a hut. While I went about stabilizing it, Tony learned how to slap a couple slabs of stone together to spark tinder, lighting up the stringy, fibrous undersides of purple moss, mostly. Horn, meanwhile, he was still in a bad, bad way. The sun was relentless out on that beach, and the heat that rose up and out of the sand and pebbles nearly choked us all to death. Plus, we were terrible hungry. Hadn’t eaten nothing except a couple sea slugs and some caterpillars since we’d shipwrecked on that lonely isle.

 

“I’ve got a plan. But first, we’ve got to get Horn out of this heat.” Tony announced one day. 

 

“Where can we bring him?” I asked.

 

“How about if I take him to the grotto and make him a little bed. What do you think about that?”

 

“W-well…” I stammered.

 

“I’ll check in on him every day. You’ll stay on the beach. I’ll put it on you to make an SOS sign out of stones and rocks and whatever else you manage to dig up in case somebody flies over. In the meantime, I’ll tend to Horn and explore the rest of the island. Maybe there’s something we can use on the other side?”

 

I paused and considered the proposal and, seeing no issue with Tony’s logic, agreed to the terms of his plan.

 

The next morning Tony grabbed Horn and chucked him over his shoulder and disappeared into the jungle. I was left out on the beach, alone, but at least I had a task. I set to making the ‘H’ in the HELP US sign that I intended to lay out across the beach. I had planned on soaking purple moss in a bowl of sea water and dying the stones purple, so that they might stick out to a pilot flying a passing plane.

 

Tony returned that evening. He had a big, wonderful smile on his face. 

 

“You’re not going to believe what I found.” He said, taking my face in his hands.

 

“What’s that now?”

 

“Seagulls. They’re everywhere out on the other side of the island. Only thing is, it’s completely uninhabitable. We’ll have to stay here.”

 

“Seagulls?” I asked. Why should I have cared if there were seagulls?

 

Tony produced two slabs of red meat. 

 

“I stoned one to death. Made a slingshot. Bubby, we’re going to eat tonight!” Tony yipped.

 

“I could cry!” I practically yelled. “But… how’s Horn? Did he have a chance to eat?”

 

“Oh, Horn? Oh, well, yes. I already cooked him up something nice. Here.” Tony passed the meat over to me. “Let’s make seagull soup.”

 

The seagull soup was delicious. We set a makeshift pot of freshwater over a fire and flavored the water with scallions and seawater. After we’d finished eating, I leaned back.

 

“How about if I check in on Horn tomorrow and see to the seagulls. I need to stretch my legs anyhow. This sight is sore on my eyes.”

 

Tony worried.

 

“No. No. I’ve got Lady Luck with me, Jamesy. We can’t press our luck now… under these conditions.” He was adamant. “And plus, you’re doing such a swell job with the SOS. Let’s stick to our roles.”

 

And so day rose and night fell, and rose and fell again, and did so over and over again until I utterly lost track of time. Every evening we ate a hearty helping of seagull soup. I looked forward to it. The meat was tender and delicious. Gamey, but in an animalistic and nourishing sort of way.     

 

Then, one evening, Tony trudged back to camp looking dejected.

 

“James, I’ve got some bad news.” A tear fell from his cheek. “Horn is dead.”

 

“Dead?” I inhaled sharply.

 

“Yes. Dead.”

 

“Oh, hell. What the hell! God, why do you have to be so cruel! Why, God, why!” I shook my fist at the sky and wept. Then, I turned to Tony. “We can bury him tomorrow. I’ve got some parting words I’d like to pass along.”

 

Tony frightened.

 

“No, no, no. That won’t do. I’ve… I’ve already buried him. I didn’t want some ravenous critter to get at him first. He’s already buried. Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

 

Who knows how many weeks were vanquished by the suns and moons that whirled round that hideous beach. I knew the place down to the crag. The mosquitoes yipped up North, near the sandbar that was shaped like a scimitar. Near the treeline, down South, fire ants held court. I entertained myself by decorating the SOS sign. Making it more and more decorous. But, oh, eventually, I started losing hope. The seagull portions were growing smaller. Tony said he had resorted to hunting the babes, since he’d annihilated all the adults already. His hunts only lasted a few hours–not the whole day. Mostly, he and I spent our time passing our life stories since there was nothing else to do except sit and wait.

 

Then, why, the most beautiful thing happened. We heard the propellers beating against the air before we saw the plane. It was mid-morning. The skies were clear. And we were well-prepared. We leapt up and out of the hut and danced around the beach as the plane, which thankfully had been flying low, passed overhead. Less than a mile out, the pilot shot up a flare–signaling to us that he’d marked us.

 

A few hours later, a rescue boat landed on the beach. Tony and I were brought onboard and whisked back home. Back to our families. Back to civilization. Back to the lives we’d lead before the storm.

​

"

​

“Your seagull soup, sir.” A bearded fella, rangy and risible, wearing a chef’s coat, presented to 

James in a simple white porcelain bowl the soup that had saved his life. James was hungry. He hadn’t thought about seagull soup in many, many years… and talking about it had worked up his appetite for it. 

 

“Go ahead. I don’t mind.” The waitress smiled, her eyes twinkling.

 

James took the first bite and then immediately spat it out. 

 

“What is this!?” James cried, scraping the taste off his tongue with a spoon.

 

Morty turned around.

 

“That’s seagull soup, sir. Seawater, scallions and seagull meat. Nothing else.” 

 

James sat there for a moment, feeling the eyes of the waitress dance across his face in search of 

a sign. Then, he started to cry, for a horrible, terrible, soul-crushing realization set upon him.

 

“What’s wrong?” The waitress asked. She stroked his forearm comfortingly. 

 

James sniffled.

 

“That wasn’t seagull soup I was eating… all those years ago… was it?” He gazed up at her, this 

nameless waitress, his teeth chattering from guilt.

 

“Then, what… was…” She clapped her hand to her face.

 

“It was Captain Horn.”