Those Who Live in Grass Houses

Ollie and Betty

Ollie and Betty

The town was too close to the sea. Every day, bits of the cliff crumbled and slipped down the slope into the waves beating on the shore below. This erosion had reached the houses now and the townsfolk watched as, one after another, their homes were nibbled at, then broken, and eventually dragged down into the abyss. Sometimes larger pieces of the land broke away and tumbled down, leaving new gaps and creating minor promontories in the shoreline below. On two occasions, houses disappeared overnight, riding the land on which they were built and then smashed to pieces when they crashed into the sea.

Oliver and Betty Mansfield’s house went like that. This was different, however. The couple were still in the house when it went.

Waking in the dark as the house trembled and shook with the crumbling of the land, they tumbled out of bed, aware now of what was happening, but thrown about the room as the shaking became worse. And then they could feel themselves falling, sailing downward with the house still in one piece, surfboarding the chunk of earth on which it stood.

They used those last few moments of comparative peace to reach across to each other and hold hands.

“You alright, Betty? We need to stick together if we’re to survive this.”

And Betty had answered, “I’ll never leave you, Ollie,” as she tightened her grip.

Then the world disintegrated into a chaos of flying furniture, splintered beams, and screaming noise. Oliver and Betty, still holding hands, were thrown across the room and out of a vast gap that had appeared in what had once been a wall. Then they were out in the dark, tumbling through the air and colliding with earth, timber, rocks and spray, until dumped like garbage into the ocean.

They were pulled this way and that as the waves fought each other to get at the ruins of the house. A board crashed into Betty and, instinctively, she grabbed at it and held on. Oliver still held her hand and worked his way round until he too could grasp the board. Together they were pulled out to sea by the tide, only their floating piece of wood keeping them from going under.

This far out at sea the waves were less fierce and they were able to take stock of the situation. The night sky gave enough light to see that the coastline was gradually becoming less distinct as they drifted away. They were being pulled southward by the same current that nibbled so ceaselessly at the cliff they had called their home. And, in the gloom, they could make out a larger piece of their house riding the waves with them and getting ever closer.

It was a great slab of wooden boards still held together with cross beams, ragged at the edges as if a huge bite had been taken out of the meal that the ocean had eaten. When it was close enough, they clambered on, grateful to be out of the water at last. They lay there, exhausted and cold, hugging each other for protection and warmth, as the remains of their house carried therm farther and farther away from the only home they had ever known.

In the morning they found themselves in a world composed only of sea and sky; the land was nowhere to be seen. They were cold but the sun was warming them gradually and the waves, gentler now, did no more than lap at the ragged edges of their raft. They were two pilgrims alone in an unknown seascape, afloat in the hands of fate.

A fate that could have been so much worse, as acknowledged by Oliver when he turned to Betty and said, “Eh lass, reckon we’ve been pretty lucky after all that. As long as we’re still alive and got each other.”

“And look at it this way, Ollie. You always wanted to go to sea and it looks like you’ve had your wish granted after all these years. Makes me wish I’d allowed it when we were young.”

“Well, they say the fishing’s gone up spout these days, so you weren’t wrong and all.”

“Which reminds me,” said Betty, looking all around at the endless sea, “I don’t know what we’ll have for breakfast.. A kipper would have been right welcome but I don’t think we’re going to run into one of them.”

But Oliver was staring away to the west. “Hullo,” he said. “I think I can see something coming. A ship or summat.”

She turned to look. “Eh, Ollie, you’re right.” And then, as the minutes ticked by and the shape became clearer, “But it’s a boat, not a ship.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One’s bigger than t’other.”

“No, lass, I mean it don’t make no difference. I know a ship’s bigger than a boat. But it’s rescue, Betty. We’re saved!”

And he was right. It was a coast guard launch on its rounds and it picked them up and brought them in to shore. There was a great fuss made when the news of their survival was made known and for a few days their story was in every newspaper. They were interviewed for the telly, oops sorry, television (Ollie and Betty’s accent getting to me), and Betty especially charmed everyone with her bright smile and cheery outlook.

In time they became known internationally, were noted guests on many shows and had so many donations given for their new housing fund that they never even needed a mortgage. And Betty summed up their new life with the immortal words:

“Ee, Ollie, I always did say you were the luckiest man alive. After all, you’ve got me, ain’t you?”


House Martell

Word count: 957
For "Game of Thrones"  The North Remembers, Mirror Mirror Task 11
Prompt: Set your story in a town that’s teetering on the edge of something dark.