The Voice of Davy Jones

All things return to me.

A lifeguard sits at the top of her chair, basking in the heat of the sun. She looks out over the glinting water, speckled with swimmers, a hundred fleshy buoys, bobbing in the endless sea. The sand is pocked with pastel umbrellas in all directions. Laughter and spirited conversations infiltrate the harmony of the wind and the waves. And a petulant bickering rises above it all.

“Ow!”

“Mom said to leave it!”

“Give it back!”

At the water’s edge, she spots the two boys, skin turning lobster red, grappling over something between them. “Hey, you two, no fighting!” She calls out. Several eyes turn to her, but the boys either can’t hear her or pretend not to. She grits her teeth and peels herself from the chair.

As she weaves her way through the forest of umbrellas, navigating the underbrush of sweaty bodies, she mumbles little curses. Things that are mostly harmless and well deserved:

“May seagulls steal your lunch.”

“May you never get the grit out of your shoes.”

“May you always find the sharpest shell wherever you lay your towel.”

“May the sand burn your soles on the way out.”

She first stood on this shore while on an otherwise unfortunate family road trip. Back then, the area had been nothing more than a quaint, if somewhat shabby, fishing town. Standing in the surf, looking over the expanse that stretched to the horizon and beyond, she felt the breath and blood of the world, the powerful beating of its molten heart, in the waves and the breeze and the shifting sand.

But after a young couple shared a picture of a tarnished silver fork they’d found while on vacation, reports came out about the countless ships that had crashed on hidden rocks and sandbars off the coast. This attracted amateur treasure hunters from around the world, hoping to make the next million-dollar discovery. Or the next million-dollar photo. And then came the news crews and the anthropologists. And with them came their families and their friends and their friend’s families.

The more people came, the more others followed, until the beach was flooded with tan-lined tourists, letting their children run free to chase the gulls, and leaving behind broken sandals and half-empty bottles of sunscreen and other bits of chaff from their excursions.

The lifeguard’s shadow falls on the boys. “I said, no fighting. Where are your parents?” The boys look toward her then quickly look away. One of the boys drops something and, together, they run, sand flying behind them.

“No running either!” She calls after them.

She looks down and sees the instigating item. A large whelk shell. She picks it up. Examines it. The outside is the golden color of sand at sunset, the inside an iridescent stormy blue that ripples in the light. She’s inspired to do something she hasn’t done since childhood; she holds it up to her ear. And she hears the ocean.

Ancient Leviathans lurk beneath the waves; aberrations hide in the depths of eternal night; predator and prey abide, worlds swirling in unfathomable fathoms. They are born, they grow, they die, their remains are scattered to distant shores. The end must follow the beginning. The time draws near. All things return to me.

She lowers the shell, hands shaking. She feels a change in the air that wraps around her, like the electric feeling before a thunderstorm. A thrum of anticipation. Then, she pulls back her arm and throws the shell. As it hits the water, a surge of power washes over her. For one endless moment, everything else is stripped away; she is alone, her heart and breath align with the tide. And she understands. The shell will be the first of many, sent back to the great deep where it belongs.

***

She starts with her own small collection of treasures: a coin with a weathered face, some bottle caps, a handful of sea glass, a stack of sun bleached sand dollars. And she discovers that, if she listens, she can hear the voice of the ocean, like an undertow in the breeze.

In a rowboat sit suntanned men with unlucky rods. They drink and drink and drink and laugh. And then they laugh beneath the waves. All things return to me.

***

As she walks along the beach, she throws what she finds back into the waves. But these are usually small, inconsequential items. A clump of seaweed, a few lost pennies, pieces of driftwood. At the same time, the tourists work to undermine her efforts with their shovels and their buckets. Sometimes she is able to recover a handful of unwatched spoils, but more things are taken than are returned.

A ship sets out under the full moon, those aboard dance with shining gems and billowing frills. Their music calls to the listeners below. They do not see the rocks that breach their hull. All things return to me.

***

Soon she turns her attention to the resort she works for. It was the first of many in the boom, built beside the shore with seaside service. The owners adorn the walls with donations dredged up by guests and eccentrics: Cannon balls, a tarnished cup, tattered clothes, bones and teeth, and a turtle shell. All given in exchange for a name on a plaque.

Night by night, she takes a few select items down to the shore, when the beach is closed and the tide is high, and sends them on their final journey. And the voice grows clearer, stronger, reverberating in her bones.

A youngling scrambles over hot sand into the turbulent waves, seeking safety from the ravenous gulls. He is one in a thousand. He spends his days swimming and eating and siring others who will come after. With luck and natural cunning he lives to be a hundred and ten when, at last, the jaws of death find him. All things return to me.

She stands on the shoreline with a bloated journal in her hands. It belonged to the captain of some forgotten ship. He wrote of a man who had been caught stealing on multiple occasions and tossing the items overboard. At first, the captain wrote it off as an odd quirk, a heathen religious practice, and so ignored it. He’d come to learn that it was good to allow his crew their rituals, especially those meant to appease the sea. But when they caught the man throwing over the rations and weapons, they were forced to restrain him. The captain came to believe that the man was possessed by the voice of Davy Jones.
She clutches the journal, fingers turning white. And then she casts it, as far as she can, into the waves.
Two ships pass in the night. Tensions rise. A miscommunication. Shots are fired. All things return to me.

***

Each day she sees a little more of her work undone as tourists and excavators who continue to scour the sands, stuffing their pockets with plunder. She starts whispering new curses:

“May your prideful step find a stingray.”

“May the sun scorch your flesh until it blisters.”

“May the ocean show you its strength.”

But she remains methodical in her work, even going so far as to dismember a mermaid that once adorned a ship’s prow, dragging it down to the water, piece by piece, wrapped in a scrap of canvas sail like a shroud.

They set out seeking a more peaceful place. Currents carry them to the shore where they build new homes and eat from the bounty of the waves. They etch their blessings in sand and on rock. They think they have found paradise and peace. But the storm comes, the waves rise and wash away all but stone. One day the waters will rise again and consume the world. All things return to me.

As she turns to leave, she hears voices in the distance. She presses her back against the rock, holding her breath, heart pounding against the sand. She sees a pair of dark shadows, running, giggling, hand in hand. She watches them run into the waves. She breathes out and runs back to the resort.

The next morning, police arrive. They go out in boats. They come back. They leave. She stands in the surf with a ruby ring, catching the rays of the setting sun. She tosses it into the water.

Two lovers, high on more than love, wade out into the waves. Their bodies find each other. The rocks find their bodies. All things return to me.

***

In the last balmy week of summer, a hurricane forms in the open ocean. It is heading for the beach. Restless waves churn under the dusky purple sky. Being a lifeguard, she is tasked with helping to evacuate the beach. She walks on the shoreline where the waves wash over her feet and relishes yelling for the stragglers to “Get off the beach!”. What she really means is “Get off my beach”. And she has come to think of it as her beach, herself its steward.

The guests leave, their umbrellas are folded up and stashed away, the commotion fades until there is nothing but the peaceful inhale, exhale of the surf. She knows that when she returns after the storm, there will be driftwood and all manner of detritus washed up on the shore that she must attend to. And then the crowds will return. But right now, she is enjoying the peaceful serenity that is only possible because of the storm.

She casts one last look out over the ocean. The wind rises. Her heart shudders. And she is gripped by a sudden cold as all of the warmth is drawn from her by the ebb of the tide. The waters rise and the sand shifts under her feet. An incoming wave swipes her legs from under her.

She scrambles, trying to get back on her feet. But the sand keeps shifting. Another wave follows. And another and another. Now they are coming down on her head, forcing the breath from her lungs. She opens her mouth. Salt water rushes in. She tumbles, grasping wildly. Looking for something solid. Finding only water and sand. And then, she is floating in a deep darkness. The voice of the ocean surrounds her.
The time has come. A storm unlike any other. The waters rise. All things return to me.

---

About this story, a chaotic process

The voice of Davy Jones, was published on Pulp Asylum in august 2025

This story started out, as a lot of my stories do, as a vignette (in fact, my ideas folder is basically just a bunch of Vignettes). I wrote about 300 words in a stream-of-consciousness style about a lifeguard who hated the patrons on her beach. But that was all I had. There wasn’t really a story. Nothing really happened. But I thought it had some interesting stuff, so I put it away and moved on to other things.

About a year later, I had another idea for a story set in an abandoned beach resort and then I remembered this vignette and began weaving together a story about the lifeguard who served “the voice”. However, if you’ve read the story, you will know I eventually dropped the idea of an “abandoned” resort (after a couple of rambling iterations where I struggled to nail down the plot) and finally decided to set the story in some indeterminate “present day”.

From there, it was a fairly quick process to get a relatively clean first draft. But while editing it I knew that something still wasn’t right. I just didn’t find it compelling and I was struggling with my feelings about the character. So, I started playing around with voice, first vs. third person, and in doing this, I had my “eureka moment”, the last piece that makes the story come together in my head. I figured out the framing through which I wanted to tell the story, the voice of the ocean.