A pale sun slides into a sky vacated by a cataract moon. Two tarnished pennies. An exchange.
The surf sounds so close it might be undermining the very supports of this beach house. But I'm not fretting; this is the tail end of the storm. Whatever wild, dire omens rode its turbulent breakers have already come and long gone.
Now, the susurrant rush and hiss-drag of the waves over sand and pebbles sounds more like the fading coda of some vast, tenebrous requiem shimmering into morning.
Tentative, reluctant, like lonely people closing their front doors. One more glance. The hope that won't die.
A sudden swell, like the late, bright moments of a life, suddenly poignant against the grey of everything that came before. If not to innocence, a return to childhood at least.
No storm will ever frighten me again. There's a dark, turgid river now, running beneath everything.
Nona lies broken amid more broken things. Liquor bottles, betrayal, cracked photo frames, knickknacks. A laptop, its screen spiderwebbed. Our last ever fight. A doozy, as they say. A blood reckoning, I think. I pick my way through the shattered glass, through our shattered, annihilated lives, and find my phone, tacky with jellied (and gelid) blood.
Hit 911.
Time to pay the ferryman.
_____________________
Once again, a big shoutout to Dan Mader and all the regulars who post their amazing flash fiction on his blog every Friday. Big love and smooches to all a y'all.