Tornado

The thought tornado races across the plateau, obliterating the carefully constructed notions and ideas, erasing an eon of identity and slowly built personality. The tempest tears through all that they had once known, leaving behind little but angst and resentment, poisoning the once lush landscape into a barren wasteland, a graveyard of hopes and dreams, a bitter monument to the destructiveness of the one person they had trusted. 
The sun peeked over the mountains, slowly, as if afraid of what it would see.
But in the wreckage of all they had lost, the seeds of hope live. Small at first, the green shoots quickly grow to cover the demolished buildings, taking back its rightful property:
The desires and ideas, the dreams and the notions of reality. 
The plants of hope break down everything, from the largest slab of a dream to the smallest petty desire. 
Once it had engulfed the plateau, the carpet of green hope slept, resting. 
The sun of consciousness rose and fell, but the hope did not change. It did not grow, but neither did it recede. For a few days, it merely was. 
But one night, under the silver glow of the subconscious moon, the hope moved. For two days it had been storing its absorbed energy, and tonight it released it.
A flower bloomed. A small yellow one that has no name other than happiness. 
At first there was only one of these blossoms, but more opened their petals, releasing their pent up joy.
As this all happened under the glow of the moon, consciousness did not yet know of it.
But when the sun rose and saw the sea of yellow, it did not question how it came to be.
The sun rose, peaked, and fell. 
No sooner had the sun slipped past the horizon when the carpet of hope set to work once more. 
More flowers bloomed, of different colours: purples, blues, ideas, reds, dreams, thoughts.
Plants grew, shrubs and ferns and then saplings, maturing into trees. 
The sun rose again, and understood, for the newly founded forest was strong enough to continue to grow even under the close glare of consciousness. 
Some trees grew more than others, ideas that had more merit.
Eventually, after several cycles of sub and consciousness, one of the feelings reached the sky, sending ripples across the vast blue.
The point that the feeling touched the sky became an act.
As more acts appeared, they merged to form a habit.
The traits bounded together, a glorious tarpaulin of colour, and became a personality. 
The personality blinked, rubbed its eyes and rose. 
Out of the stars it fashioned a mirror and looked through at itself. It was neither pretty nor ugly, but it was spectacular. 
A smorgasbord of hopes, dreams and ideas, brought together by chance, borne of destruction.
The personality closed its eyes, inhaled deeply, and returned to the surface.

A Breath

A breath, exhale.
The blackened ash stirs, floating along the inky tarmac, dancing its song of despair.
A breath, inhale.
The sunken clouds, filled with the tears of the innocent, briefly part.
A breath, exhale.
The bloody sun glows with hate, surveyor of the hollow boneyard.
A breath, inhale.

The trampled dirt, soaked with the blood of the many, seeps its disappointment, unheard.
A breath, exhale.

Sophie

Sophie checked her arm again, the numbers sitting a muted blue just under the skin. 10:52. She sighed and dulled the display. She had to stay awake for another hour before Santa came. The faint hum of vertibirds filtered through her window, the gravs on the underside pulsing rhythmically.

Sophie shifted in her bed, reaching up to adjust the light from the pale silver to a more festive green. Not happy with it, she frowned and moved the slider to another setting. The ceiling appeared to open up, showing the navy sky above filled with a brilliant display of stars. It was, of course, only a projection; there was too much light from the city to see this many stars and Sophie lived in the middle of an apartment block anyway, but the thousands of small, glistening beacons were a comfort anyway. She rolled over, pulling the silky blankets in closer. They smelled like skin and sleep and glitter and smiles, but Sophie could have been imagining some of that. The top blanket was a little bit scratchy but it reminded her of her dad’s beard so she didn’t mind.

 One of the nearby apartments was playing carols loud enough to be heard through the walls but not loud enough to be distracting and the tunes mixed with the ambient grey noise of the world outside in a way that made Sophie smile, but not know why. At some point the music stops but she doesn’t notice, too tightly wrapped in her warm sheets and sweet dreams.

A little over an hour later, the door slides open with a barely audible pneumatic hiss. A wide figure creeps through, holding two boxes. He sets them on the floor silently, with a fluidity that could only be achieved through experience, particularly given the girth of his body. Whether through childish intuition or some other sense, despite the stealth with which he moved, Sophie began to move restlessly, slowly rising through the layers of her sleep. The man took that as his cue to leave, moving to leave the room. The pneumatic hiss was just enough to completely break sleep’s hold on Sophie and she looked blearily towards the door. She had to blink a few times before her eyes focused properly, so she only caught glimpses of the shape leaving her room. The glimpses were enough to get her out of her bed though, stumbling toward the door just as it closed.

Sophie brushed the sensor impatiently, the door not opening quickly enough for her. She squeezed through the gap as soon as she could fit and looked down the hall, but there was no one there. She stepped forward and let out an ‘eep’ as her foot touched something cold – a sprinkling of snow. There was none anywhere in the rest of the hall, so she checked in her room: nothing. She ran over to the window and pulled the curtains aside, but the night sky was clear of any clouds. A shape moved up above, too far away to see properly, but Sophie didn’t think it looked like a vertibird. A grin slowly spreading across her face, she picked up the two presents that lay at the foot of her bed and ran to her parent’s room, squealing and whooping as she went.

Her door closed behind her with the near-silent pneumatic hiss. If one listened closely, it could almost sound like a jingling of bells.

I liked the idea of having a futuristic Christmas, and at some point between that idea occurring and me actually beginning to write, it had resolved into this. This is the main festive post for today, with Coal being my sort of warm up to writing a proper piece.

Hope everyone has or had a fantastic day, whether you celebrate the holiday or not.

Coal

A man watches the clock as midnight approaches

Counting the seconds

Facing the fireplace

A loaded shotgun pointing at the hearth

"Come on, you big-sacked fatty", he murmurs

Ghostly, in the distance, the sound of bells

A faint "Ho, ho, ho"

Ho

Ho

Ho

The fireplace explodes in a storm of snow and soot

A red blur streaks out

The shotgun blares but misses

A voice from behind booms, "YOU'RE ON THE NAUGHTY LIST, SONNY"

The shotgun wheels around but before it can fire the barrel is jammed with coal

The fat man chuckles again, his too-white teeth lengthening, sharpening

"NAUGHTY CHILDREN GET COAL"

His arm whips forward, faster than humanly possible, clenched fist breaking through teeth and forcing its way down the throat

The hand pulls out but the throat is still blocked, a lump of coal cutting off all air

The shotgun falls to the ground, followed soon by a body gasping with broken and bloody teeth

The last thing he hears before darkness claims him is the sound, faintly, of bells.

Not a very long or polished piece, but I suppose that's sort of the point of a snippet. I wanted to write a Christmas piece that was a little different from the norm so I bashed this out in the space of about five minutes.

Grey

The sky was grey.
   That was the first thing Cobb noticed when he awoke. The sky was a bleak slate grey and it was very cold. It looked like someone had drawn a curtain over the sky, blocking the sun completely. As Cobb dragged himself to his feet, he noticed how unusually flat the ground was. Smooth concrete, as far as he could see, a distance getting progressively less due to a peculiar thick fog rolling towards him. It was at this stage that he realised something was wrong.
   The feeling of unease deepened as shadows flicked through the the mist, hinting at things best left unthought of. Within moments, the fog shrouded him completely, so thick that he could barely see his outstretched hand. A shadow whipped past his hand and he yanked it back, but not before he had felt the oily scales. Something behind him giggled like a small child, a sound so wrong in a place of such malignancy that it would have frozen him in terror, were he not already stock-still. Instead, the sound jolted him out of his paralysis and forward as fast as his legs could carry him. Heavy footfalls thundered behind him, and fear lent him speed even as the spirits of the damned sank their claws into his shoulder, dragging him down.
   He lashed out, trying to escape from the smothering dark, but amorphous limbs held him down and forced him to look up at the contorted black faces above him, mouths open to scream but letting only laughter out. He opened his mouth in a yell of terror and the shadows flowed in, filling him, becoming him.
   He awoke some time later to see the beautiful slate grey sky. Casting his gaze around, he saw a man picking himself up off the ground, so he floated through the air towards him and though he knew he shouldn't, he opened his black lips and giggled.

Obsession

I loved her.
From that very first moment, I loved her, She walked past, glanced my way, and I was instantly drowned in the depths of her eyes, my love for her swallowing me whole like the endless sea, the deep blue sea of her eyes. Her lips parted and a breath escaped, encompassing me like a cloud, a hallucinogenic gas rendering me inert and powerless to stop those wondrous red lips from closing around me. She brushed past and the contact was like a battery, frying all of my cells, burning me up from the inside, igniting a fire like nothing I've ever experienced. Her legs whispered as they swept her away, endless thin beings of elegance and poise, beckoning me closer and closer to this beauty, this goddess. And even as she vanished from sight, her scent lingered, a floral spiciness that drew me in, leaving me begging for more - a taste, a touch, anything - with a dash of musk thrown in as the most inspired of afterthoughts, a drug that captivated and aroused, needlessly sealing the wrought-iron cage of obsession that held me like a beast.
I needed her.

So basically, I wanted to write something that used all five senses, and this is what I came up with. It's not the best thing I've ever written, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

Putting up two snippets today, since they're both pretty short. Hope no one minds.

Mr Doldrum

   Have you ever killed a man, Mr. Doldrum? Have you ever looked into someone's eyes as they begged you for mercy, shot them as they pleaded to you?
   I didn't think so. You don't have the look about you. Someone's who's stared Death in the face, they get a certain... edge. A sharpness around their eyes.
   It's an incredible thing, Mr. Doldrum, really it is, to hold someone as their lifeblood bleeds out. It's richer in colour, lifeblood. Like it really contains their soul, giving it this beautiful crimson gleam. But that's not to say that Death is beautiful, oh no. It's generally fairly messy and violent in my line of work. But, it is my job, and it does pay well.
   Never thought I'd be a hitman, back in elementary. Always thought I'd be a fireman, But, hey, things change, right?
   You know, Frank - can I call you Frank? I feel like we've gotten close enough so as I can call you Frank - I think I like you. It's gonna be a shame to top you off. Still, you know it'll be quick and painless, which is something you couldn't have been promised by anyone else.
   Well, Mr. Doldrum, it's been a pleasure.

Pretty sure death by monologue is neither quick nor painless, but I can't imagine Frank's going to point this out. I kinda picture him frozen in terror at the start, and the longer it goes on the more he's like "...what?"

The Forgotten, Part 3

I crash through the bush, branches whipping my face, twigs tearing at my exposed legs like clawed hands, trying to hold me back. Every time I think I may be gaining ground, he ducks behind a tree, somehow always keeping the same distance from me. Everything in the bush seems to be conspiring against me, bushes and thorns and rabbit holes intent on ensnaring me and breaking my ankles, but I keep on running. There is no way I'm letting him escape. 
   After what feels like hours of running, I lose sight of him. I keep running, blindly hoping I'll see him again, but eventually I begin to accept that he has somehow eluded me. 
   He must've had a vehicle or something. How else could he have gotten here in the first place? I think, stubbornly ignoring the lack of tire tracks and the closeness of the brush. I stand in place for a second or two, then kick a tree stump in frustration and turn to walk home. Barely a step later, something catches my eye. A whirl, hoping in vain that it is the grey-blue man. What it actually is, is a house.
   Well, 'house' might be a bit generous, I think as I approach. More like a shack. Or a lean-to.
The building looks like it was hastily put together, made from branches and leaves. The door, I discover as I get closer, is nothing more than a sheet of corrugated aluminium, though only God knows how it managed to wind up out here. My heart starts to beat faster as I decide whether to enter or not. In the end, it's a pretty easy decision.
   I pull open the 'door', such as it is, and walk into the dank gloom of the shack. There's just the one room, and furnishing it is only a tree stump under a window and a vase holding four flowers: two daisies and two petunias. The window is to the right of the door, so I didn't see it when I approached from the outside. On the stump, I realise, is a small piece of paper.
   I walk slowly towards the paper, the ringing in my ears faintly reappearing. The paper is crinkled and looks like it's been there for a while. What interests me more than the paper, though, is the words written on it in a dark red ink that looks far too much like blood. My brain starts screaming at me to get out, to get away from this forsaken place, but I've come too far to turn back now.
   I begin to read.
   The flowers, the scrawling hand writes, the flowers make them stay, make them stay at bay, away, away. But only when I'm near. I won't listen. I won't let them whisper to me any longer. The eyes they see, the ears hear, but the mind it does not remember, does not remember until it is too late. Now it's too late for me, but I don't want to Remember anymore. I want to Forget so They leave me alone, so They leave and stop Tormenting me. I don't want to be Forgotten, I'll do Anything to not be Forgotten.
   My heart is well and truly in my throat now and I'm really wishing I'd listened to my brain when it was telling me to leave. The ringing in my ears has reached fever pitch, blotting out all other sounds. But there are still some sounds, I realise, just behind all the ringing. I close my eyes and stand up, trying to listen to the sounds, trying to ignore the sweat on my back, trying to ignore my shaking hands, my jerky breaths, the whistle of the wind, and most of all the ringing.
   Then, just behind the noise, a whisper, carried on the wind by a thousand tiny forgotten voices, a single word slips through.
   The smallest hint of a noise, of skinless lips parting, whispering, "Open."

   So I open my eyes.
   Directly in front of me is the single small window, and outside the window, a hundred metres back, is the man, standing perfectly still, as motionless as a photograph. My hands begin to shake uncontrollably, dropping the paper.
   His face.
   In the photo he had looked distraught, sadness etched into every line of his features. At the time it had terrified me, but this... this is even worse. His eyes show no emotion, not his mouth. His eyebrows do not cock this way or that and his nostrils do not flare, for he has none. No nose, eyes, mouth, ears, hair. His head is perfectly smooth all over, faintly sunken where his eyes once were but otherwise uniform, like his scalp has been pulled down past his chin, and yet somehow I know that he can see me. And I know that he brought me here, that this is his shack, his spidery scrawling hand... and I know the fear he felt. It's sunk deep into my bones, curling up in my marrow and laying seeds of despair and panic, already rearing their heads. 
   I can feel myself tipping towards the abyss, my feet teetering on the precipice. 
   I stare at the man -- no, not a man; maybe once, but no longer -- and he stared back with those horrible sunken holes, each breath of wind bringing a whisper from his sealed mouth. Gradually, I become aware of more people, half-hidden behind trees but moving forward, into the waning sunlight. My eyes seem to slip over them, unable to look straight at them but even with my peripheries I can see that they all wear the same ghastly mask of skin. My heart is racing, hands shaking, hair as on-end as it can get, and my brain is screaming, begging me to leave, to run, to escape. And for the first time in over a week, I listen to it.
   I wrench open the door, grabbing the vase of flowers on a whim I fly out the door. I run, heedless of my lack of direction. All I know is that I have to get as far from here as possible. The ringing is getting louder, and with it the whispers, hiding behind the noise. The people are everywhere, emerging from the woods in all directions but straight ahead, gliding ceaselessly towards me with no need for eyes or legs, just floating ever closer.
   I'm tipping over the edge, staring down the endless abyss.
   I leap over logs and brush despite their renewed attempts to claw at me and drag me down. On all sides the creatures approach, hundreds of them gliding slowly forward. The whispers get louder and I can almost hear what they are saying, over and over and over again...
   "Therefore rotten," I hear. No, that can't be right, that doesn't make-- 
   I glance behind me and all at once realise what I'm running from. Not tens of people, or even hundreds, but thousands of them, all floating towards me, their skin taut over featureless faces, all staring with their hollow eyes, thirsting for me. A log reaches up while I'm distracted and ensnares my ankle. I hear something crack, and then I'm falling.
   I fall over the edge of the precipice. The abyss beckons, calling out to me.
   The vase flies from my grasp as I put my hands out to break my fall. The daisies and petunias are flung from my reach, swallowed by the bushes. I land on an angle and fall onto my back, where I can see the moon directly overhead, surveying the scene with disinterest. I try to stand, but pain lances through my ankle and I fall back to the hard dirt. I look up, tears streaming from my eyes, and see the horde gliding ever closer, silent but for the ceaseless whispers that form from their faceless skulls as they surge closer, arms outstretched, reaching out to me. As they get closer, I begin to make out their whispered chant. 
   "Join us." They beckon.
   "It is time." The mass leans in.
   "Time to become one of us."
   Cold, clammy hands grasp my wrist, hair, legs, and everywhere they touch erupts into fire, pain searing through my body.
   "The Forgotten." They chorus, groping and molesting me. Blood soaks through my clothes as lacerations inflict themselves wherever one of them touch me. Their blank faces crowd over me, begging my attention, suffocating me.
   "The Forgotten."
   The blood slows, my skin growing colder as I slip into the abyss. The mass of bodies close in, aching to touch living flesh, devouring me.
   "The Forgotten."
   The abyss swallows my soul.
   "The Forgotten."
   "The Forgotten."

And that's the end of that. This snippet was based on a dream (read: nightmare) that a friend had. I was considering writing a proper short story/novella about it, which would take place after The Forgotten. I never got around to it though, so it's currently sitting in the back of my mind as another "on hold" project.

As always,  feedback and thoughts are more than welcome.

The Forgotten, Part 2

   I've only got one bar of reception, but I try anyway. The phone rings once, twice, five times... Just as I'm about to give up and hang up, she answers.

   "Hey, David, what's up? How's the vacation?"
   "Hey Mary. It's alright, I guess. I just needed to hear someone else's voice for a while."
   "Aww, getting a little lonely? I told you you should've brought Amy with you."
   "Mary. We broke up a month ago. I needed some alone time."
   "And yet now here you are, complaining of being lonely." I can hear the smirk in her voice. My sister is younger than me and revels in any victory over me, no matter how small. 
   "More like cabin fever. Did you get the picture I sent?" I ask, attempting to steer the conversation onto lighter topics. 
   "Of the daisies? Yeah, I did. I am so jealous of whoever owns that house, to be able to have that view whenever they want. If I owned it, I'd never rent it out, just live there." She sighs.
   "I'll tell the owners, but somehow I don't think they share your enthusiasm. Certainly not in regards to gardening." I smile. I was right, talking to her was making me feel better. 
   She laughs, then pauses for a moment, as if she's checking something. "Wait, didn't you say you were alone?"
   A small chill runs down my spine. "I am. Why?"
   "Do you have the TV on?"
   "No? Mary, what is it?" I glance around, the unease quelled by hearing her voice rising again. "Mary?"
   She pauses again before replying. "It's nothing." She says. "Must've just been hash on the line. I thought I heard someone saying 'therefore rotten' or something--"
   She cuts off just before a wave of static comes over the line. For a moment I fancy I can hear a voice whispering 'therefore rotten' before the line clears again. 
   "--gardener or something?" Mary finishes, sounding uncertain.
   "What? I missed all of that. Say again?"
   "Do you have a gardener or anything like that?" She repeats a little more strongly. 
   "No, I'm completely alone." I answer, exasperated and more than a little creeped out. "The nearest life is over four hours away. Why, Mary? What's wrong?"
   "In the picture, the garden--" A surge of static engulfs her words, cutting off whatever she was about to say, before the line abruptly goes dead. I can feel my pulse quickening, the palms of my hands sweating, making the phone slippery. I no longer have any reception. Frantically-quickly, I go into my photos and look through the six I took most recently.
   The garden, she said. What's wrong with the garden? My eyes flick back and forth, left-right-down-down-left-right-down, until I see it.

   A person, so obvious it's ridiculous I missed him until now. In all the photos, bottom-left of screen, looking directly at the camera, at the phone, no, past the phone, at ME, in all six exactly the same. His face looks sad. No, not sad; miserable. He has the look of someone who has lost everything. He looks scared. He looks terrifying.
The thing that scares me most, though, more than his grey-blue skin and clothes, more than the fact that he looks almost transparent, insubstantial, is the fact that I didn't see him. I looked through the photos multiple times, but I somehow managed to overlook him, and I can't help shake the feeling that if Mary hadn't pointed him out, I would never have seen him.
   A high-pitched ringing starts up in my ears. Years of habit reveal themselves when I open my mouth to pray for the newly lost soul, before reality reasserts itself. 
   I shove the unease from my mind and storm outside. If someone was in the garden then they were trespassing. 
   "Hello?" I call out. "I know you're out there. I saw you!"
   Silence is my only reply. The ringing gets imperceptibly louder, the hairs on the back of my neck raising a little. 
   "He has to be around here somewhere," I mutter to myself. "Come out! I'm not playing around! I'll call the police!"
   The ringing suddenly spikes, pressure and pain building in my ears until I'm forced onto my knees through sheer force of hurt. 
   Oh God, it hurts, why does it hurt so bad-- What have I done-- have my eardrums burst-- Oh God oh GOD OH GOD--
   Just when I think it can't possibly hurt any more, the pain disappears. The fog of agony lifts from my mind and I'm left kneeling on the dry grass, my heart racing, lungs pumping and mind whirring. A chill runs down my spine and something flickers on the outside of sight. I spin around and almost catch sight of him before he disappears into the bushland. Hauling myself to my feet, I stagger after him.
   "Hey, get back here!" I yell. I can't shake the feeling that the pain was somehow his fault. I'm not letting him get away from me.

The Forgotten, Part 1

A flicker, out of the corner of my eye.

   What was that? My eyes dart over to the bedroom wall, but whatever it was, if there was anything, is gone.
   I've gotta keep my head on. Things have gotten... weird, lately. Sometimes I'll think I hear a noise outside, or catch a glimpse of something just out of sight, but it's always just the wind or the waves or a tree, slowly swaying back and forth. 
   "The Beachside Bungalow!" The ad proclaimed. "Wash off the stress of the daily grind!"
   Well, whatever this place is, restful is not an appropriate adjective. There just seems to be something... off, about everything. The colours seem to sharp, saturating the air with a sort of ceaseless oppressive vibrancy that set my teeth on edge. I've half a mind to just leave, go home a few days early, but somehow that feels like letting the house win.
   No, damn it, you're being paranoid. I tell myself. It's just a house! You came here to get away from stress, and you're wasting the money by just sitting inside, jumping at shadows.
   I get up, walking over to the window and throwing open the shutters. For half a second, I imagine a grey-blue face looking over my shoulder in the reflection, but when I glance around there's nothing there. 
   Of course there's nothing there.
   The sun is hanging high over the sea, loftily surveying the small house and its overgrown garden, petunias and daisies mixing with the local brush. 
   Maybe some sun will do me good.
   I chuck on some boardies and head outside, not bothering with sun protection. The sun here is warm but harmless, a comforting glow of warmth that hangs around for ten hours a day and then leaves you to the sub-zero nights. It's the night that's the real killer here, not some half-baked melanoma. You don't rug up nice and warm by eight o'clock, you'd better get moving or risk freezing over. I almost did, the first night. I came to this self-proclaimed seaside paradise with not even a jumper, expecting temperatures of twenty above, but luckily there was enough wood to get the fireplace crackling and stave off the worst of the cold until the sun decided to peek out from behind the horizon, sullen and hungover. 
   "Oh, blimey, was it that cold last night? Sorry, I had a thing with some other stars, group poker thing, you know."
   I managed to get the Jeep to start after much kicking and swearing and drove into the nearest town to buy some clothes to help me survive the remaining nights. The round trip took just over nine hours, so the sun was already sinking beneath the waves when I got back, the moon reasserting its dominance over the heavens. It was that night, as I lay on the lumpy mattress in three layers of new clothes, that I first started thinking I saw things.

   I was just about to fall asleep, that precipice between having your feet planted in reality and being hurled over into your subconscious. Teetering on the edge, I'd just begun to tip over when my body jerked itself awake in that smug and depreciating way it has of reminding you that you can't fall asleep without its consent. So I jolted awake, and for half a second I felt it. I've never really understood the feeling of being watched, but in that moment it became crystal clear. I'm talking racing heart, gasping breaths, the hair on the back of my neck raising like hackles on a hound, the whole shebang. And after about half a second of lucidity and paralysing fear, something flitted from the corner of my eye and the feeling vanished. 
Since then I've been getting increasingly edgy, jumping at phantoms of my over-active imagination and having trouble falling asleep, my mind not letting me hurl myself over the precipice and into the sweet abyss. Sounds keep me awake when I close my eyes from the dark, whispers from the wind brushing past my ears so that I strain to hear them even while I dread what they might say. I've probably gotten about seven hours of sleep total since I got here; none on the first night; four the second, after the brief panic attack subsided; two the night after; and one last night, if that.
   That's probably all this is. Just a lack of sleep. I'm not used to the cold, and I'm not sleeping well, so my brain's a bit fuzzy. That's all it is.
   The beach is mainly stone, reminiscent of the shores of England, but the water's surprisingly warm in the late afternoon sun. The sun's beaming at me like a slightly unhinged uncle, glad he's made life that little bit easier before he goes on vacation and leaves me with Luna, the babysitter from hell. I float for a while before going in and towelling off. The unease is still slouching in the back of my mind, however, a thin film of greasy distrust that the salt couldn't quite wash off. 
   On the way back to the house I pick some daisies from the garden and put them in a small vase overlooking the ocean. I frame the image with my fingers, closing one eye like they do in movies, as if it'll make a difference. Struck by a moment of inspiration, I walk to my room and retrieve my mobile, going into the camera function as I head back to the kitchen. I take half a dozen photos from different angles and then select the best one, sending it to my sister. She always loved daisies. I go to put my phone away, but hesitate. Maybe what I need is to hear another human voice.