Saturday, August 18, 2012

A Drop of Liquid Hope

First published in Heart-Bytes for the Flash fiction competition.

I sat in silence. The wind grazed my hair and honoured my nostrils with the stench of the seven seas. There were others too, who were seated unmoved in a spell of inactivity sharing silence with me. The sky filled with dark smoke merged easily with the stagnant liquid of the sea, indistinguishable in colour they united and held their bond. An uneasy sight for others, but I begged to differ.

Out of the two, the one that sat away from me kept dropping rocks into the murky water. The object hit the water, no ripples formed and sunk quietly into darkness. Life was something similar, in the end all that awaited one was darkness. There was nothing more to it, we inhabitants of light in our quest to find brighter lights move into darkness.

The stranger turned her neck a few degrees bringing me into her field of vision.

“Is it always like this?”

“It gets darker”

I could tell my reply was quick to bring in anguish to her heart.

“It wasn’t always like this!”

“There were better times?”

“Times where one could sea through the water”

“Just the like in textbooks”

“Something like that”

She shifted her gaze and so did I. Her friend however did not bother to break the silence. Content with the murky water he sat there. The clouds grew darker; the source could be seen now. The colossal vessel that floated like the fishes that lost interest in swimming now came into view. Leaving a trail of blacker black, it ordered fishes to rise up and show respect. The fishes rose and the girl’s heart sank.

A few silhouettes scrambled onboard. I remained still, while one shrieked and the other dropped another rock. A rock added to the grave of blue, maybe it fell on Neptune’s tomb. I did not know, I didn’t want to know.

The beast leaked black, sons and daughters of Neptune rose in awe. I still remained unmoved but the girl got up and stood for a while. She motioned towards the edge that separated wet from dry and emptied her bottle of water. The clear liquid vanished quickly unable to fight off the evil that lurked in every corner of its new home.

 She turned towards me and said “May be that will help”


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