Here is a preview of my coming novel When Oceans Dream. The novel is a cosmic horror that explores how sorrow connects and dissolves us—how, in the face of planetary indifference, mourning becomes meaning. When everything is lost, what remains is the echo of life itself. This is an draft of the first chapter: Watchers by Morning
On a secluded February beach, Amara Finch photographs herself modeling sea-inspired outfits she dyed herself, battling uneven sand, fickle wind, and a new camera’s mystifying settings while changing clothes openly in the isolation.
Growing bolder through trial and error, she captures the garments’ vibrant blues and teals against the ocean backdrop, but her rhythm falters when she spots three motionless, incongruously dressed figures on a distant dune, staring intently at the horizon rather than her, as an eerie hush carries her name on the surf and the camera beeps unprompted, heightening the unsettling atmosphere.
Ready for the preview?
Watchers by Morning
What she needed was this—the shifting dunes, the salt-whitened grasses, the indigo-dyed linen making sense where nothing else did.
The sand took the tripod unevenly, swallowing each leg at a different depth, and Amara crouched to wrench them steady. She’d done this twice already, or maybe three times. Nothing stayed level here.
Maybe she should have tested this before coming to the beach. But at home she had hardwood and loose rugs.
She checked her watch. Five forty-five. Still early enough that the beach would be empty—it always was at this hour. A warm enough morning in February that she wasn’t freezing her toes off. At least not yet.
The few gulls over the swell sounded muffled. The nearest parking area was two miles south, and this stretch of coastline had nothing to recommend it except its particular quality of isolation.
The viewfinder showed—well mostly an empty scene. And a distant horizon maybe too far away. The camera beeped as she set the timer. Ten seconds. The sound was sharp out here and it did not fit.
She hurried into position, bare feet flicking through the cool sand, and tried to arrange her face into something that looked natural. What was more natural than a face? Just don’t frown or grin. The shutter clicked. Oh no, it’s probably going to look not great, maybe.
She trudged back to review the image on the small screen. Too stiff. She looked like she was waiting for bad news. And the exposure was wrong—everything washed out, the subtle variations in the dye barely visible.
The image looked nothing like the sea. But that also changed from moment to moment. Too much shimmer and the dark and deep. For an instant the horizon completely blurred out.
She’d bought the camera only last week, spent more than she should have, and now half the buttons still mystified her. Was it the aperture? No, maybe it is the ISO? Or—is it? Yes, probably the ISO.
She scrolled through the menu options, squinting at abbreviations that meant nothing to her. Maybe she should just give up, probably. Or maybe try one more time.
After three attempts at adjusting something called white balance, the next photo looked closer to right. The dress, at least—the way the morning light caught the peacock blues bleeding into deep teals—that was what she’d spent three evenings achieving, sleeve-deep in indigo and salt water, hands stained for days afterward.
The second outfit required her to strip down to her underwear right there on the open beach. Amara glanced over both shoulders, seeing nothing but kelp-strewn sand and the rumpled backs of dunes. Still, her fingers fumbled with the buttons.
A hang-up maybe. Possibly silly standing here worrying about it. Thirty-two years, half-dressed—only bra and panties on a public beach. Wrestling with the wind to get herself into a sea-green blouse. She should have found a model. Could she have? If she had known how, maybe. But where to even start.
She started unbuttoning the dress, then stopped when the camera made a sharp electronic chirp—some setting taking effect, she wasn’t sure which. She went back to check it, the dress half-unbuttoned and slipping off one shoulder. Adjusted the ISO again. Waited for the preview to refresh. The lag was maddening.
The wind gusted and then calmed, a strange rhythm that didn’t match the waves. Above the breeze she heard the faint electronic whine of the camera processing—a sound too steady for the stillness.
She turned back to the pile of clothes and finished pulling off the dress, then froze when another alert sounded. What now? Back to the camera. A warning about the battery, which was at sixty percent. Was that enough? Was it fully charged? She couldn’t remember. Probably fine. Or—well, hopefully fine.
The blouse went on in stages—one arm in, pause to make sure the timer was actually set, other arm in, another beep from somewhere in the menu she’d accidentally opened. She backed out of it, fingers clumsy on the small buttons, then finally fastened the last shell button and hurried into position.
But the blouse needed photographing. She’d pieced it together from two silk shirts found at the estate sale, overdyed them in a solution of spirulina and copper, and added vintage shell buttons that had cost more than the fabric itself. At the house, it was just a flat thing on a hanger. Here, with the wind catching it, with the ocean behind it—here it became what it was meant to be.
From the corner of her eye, something dark broke the line of the northern dune. Just a shadow, she thought. A trick of light. When she looked again, it was gone—or she’d lost the angle.
The timer beeped. She tried again, chin up this time, shaking her hair loose instead of tucking it back. Better. The shutter’s rapid clicks were little encouragements. A tiny applause for every brief performance.
By the fourth outfit—a tiered skirt she’d constructed from a patchwork of sea-colored scarves—she’d found something like a system. Change while the camera processed the last batch. Stop mid-zipper when it beeped for attention. Adjust whatever needed adjusting. Go back to dressing. Wait for the confirmation sounds. Position herself. The stops and starts began to feel less frantic. She was getting used to the camera’s timing. Or it got used to her, waited for her to be ready.
Her poses became more playful, crouching in the sand, turning to catch her profile, even laughing a little at her own ridiculousness when the wind whipped the skirt up and she had to chase it down the beach, half-tripping over the hem before the timer went off.
Was this what real photographers felt? This satisfaction in the repetition, in the slow refinement toward something that worked?
The halter top was next—a piece she was particularly proud of, dyed in layers that faded from foam-white at the neckline to a deep ocean teal at the hem. She started untying the skirt’s drawstring, paused when the camera emitted a double beep—exposure compensation activating, maybe?—then finished stepping out of it. The halter went on in fits and starts: over her head, wait for the camera, tie the straps behind her neck, another beep, adjust the fabric. The timer was already set. She hurried into position.
It wasn’t until she reviewed the photos that she saw it: her black bra strap, visible and obvious against the pale skin of her shoulder, clashing with the pastels, completely ruining the line of the piece. Of course. The kind of mistake she’d catalog for later—proof filed away that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
She stood there, arms wrapped around herself, considering her options. She could skip this piece entirely. Or she could—well. There was no one here. There hadn’t been anyone for the past hour. She glanced up and down the beach again, saw nothing but gulls and distant surf.
Okay then—she should be fine.
She reached behind her neck to untie the halter. The camera beeped—the timer resetting itself. She paused, hands still at her neck, waiting to see if it needed something. Just the auto-off warning. She disabled it and went back to the halter, untied it, and with her back to the empty dunes, unhooked her bra and slipped it off. A chill tickled her ribs. The camera whined petulantly—now what? She turned, half-naked, the halter clutched to her chest, and checked the screen. Nothing. Just some lag in the system. The breeze made sand nibble at her ankles.
The halter went back on. No, she fumbled the knot and the wind whipped the two triangles from her fingers and made them flutter and snap. Flashing the ocean with naked breasts wasn’t liberating. She wanted to lash back. For being exposed in a way that had nothing to do with what was visible.
She made the knot again, tight.
There was some rhythm now, the back-and-forth between body and camera. Beep—adjust the frame. Adjust the knot. Beep—check the settings. No, forgot a button. Beep—timer starting. Move. Position, hold and look casual and…
When she checked the photos, the difference was undeniable. The halter looked right, tight—clean lines, the color transition uninterrupted, professional even. She took several more shots, trying different angles, and found herself growing bolder. This one with her arms raised, pausing mid-reach when the camera beeped to confirm the burst mode. This one looking over her shoulder, stopping halfway through the turn to let the autofocus recalibrate.
She was reaching for the next dress—a loose, layered thing in gradients of aqua—when a shadow caught at the edge of her sight. The fabric slipped from her fingers.
Three figures stood on the ridge of the northern dune. Motionless. No packs, no cameras, nothing to explain them. Just three silhouettes cut sharp against the whitening sky.
Her stomach twisted, like a knotted shirt dropped in boiling dye. Her breathing went short and shallow— quick—and the wind now had a nasty hitch in it. She hadn’t seen them arrive. How long had they been there?
Three people. Adults. A girl with a maxi dress and white scarf, older man with a sports coat, other man in a golf shirt and slacks. Not beach clothes. Who were—why are the just standing—how long?
Since the halter top? Since she’d been half-dressed, fumbling with the clasp? Her throat tightened. Obviously, absurdly on display she clutched her arms across to her chest—bare back, bare legs, breeze flicking sand at her, the camera blinking beside her like an accomplice that wouldn’t look away. The wet sand gone cold under the soles of her feet, like standing on late frost.
They weren’t looking at her. Their faces tilted toward the horizon, fixed on something far beyond the water’s shimmer. No talking, no shifting of weight, just that perfect stillness, as if they were waiting for a signal only they could hear.
Amara turned to follow their gaze. Nothing but sea and glare. The light had gone too bright, the color washed thin as breath. The wind died, and for a moment she heard her name in the hush that followed—Amara—drawn out and swallowed by the surf.
Another beep from the camera.
She hadn’t touched it.
The figures didn’t move. Still watching the ocean, or—no maybe not the ocean. She couldn’t tell. What were they watching, or were they all being watched?
Sample chapter from When Oceans Dream © Gerhi Janse van Vuuren
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