The Water Was Cold

Flash Fiction #23

The water was cold.

He pulled his coat tighter as he watched the young couple splashing each other in the setting sun. A lifetime ago, or maybe he had dreamt it. With each passing day, it was harder to remember her face and the colder the days, the fainter his memories. A lifetime ago, two silhouettes framed by fading rays, bereft of warmth, a light extinguished with the promise of tomorrow.

Sand danced in a gust of wind, now here, now there, rising and falling, cries of seagulls carried across the water on endless waves crashing onto the shore. He meant to shout, “Watch out!” but too late. The young lovers, two tiny twigs, were pulled under. Gone. The tide was strong. They’ll come back up. Waves were now crashing harder and harder, seagulls’ cries louder and louder, and a sudden gale whipped up gusts of sand in a frenzy.

His eyes darted across the shore. There was no one else. No one saw. His hand moved to undo the buttons on his coat. He took one step, two steps. They’ll come back up. Three steps. The gravity, the realisation of what was happening compelled him forward. His muscles tensed. Terrified and strangely elated, he no longer heard the seagulls. He no longer saw anything but that dark spot of water. It was as if someone had turned the volume of the world down, painted it in shades of grey, and he had finally found his purpose: Save that last spot of colour; save it from being muted forever.

The couple emerged, shaking and laughing, stumbling ashore. Ashamed, he realised he had run towards them and stopped and half-raised a hand in greeting. They paid him no heed. Inseparable vines huddled together under sand-ridden towels, their colours vibrant. In their light, he cast no shadow. His was a world apart, a world marred by monotones.

He turned to leave. A hunger took hold of him, a hunger that consumed, a hunger he could not satiate, and with it came anger, frustration, envy, suffering—humiliation. He remembered the chains. The chair. No. She was good. She did it to protect him. His love, his light, she let him sit by the window. He liked to sit by the window, light dancing on his sea-weathered face. It soothed him. He could not go back.

She giggled. Intimate sounds, love, desire, lust, pure lust, sins of the flesh. It was her, it couldn’t be, but it was. Right there, with this other man. They were laughing, seeing him, ignoring him, teasing him, sucking all life from him, moving, moaning, more and more, faster and faster, and his world turned crimson.

Face skywards, his grey eyes distant, he met dawn’s first light, lying on the beach, fingers clenched around what he knew not, only that it felt rough and wet and red. A seagull danced on the sand, pecking, then another, and circling, circling above that last spot of colour.

The water was cold.

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Nazaré, Portugal, 2018