Bonus Fiction: Tidal

Flash Fiction Fridays have been by far the most popular feature on this blog to date, so today I thought I’d post a bonus fiction. I stumbled across this story in my computer as I was researching Thursday’s post. I had completely forgotten about it until I saw it. I wrote it in 2002 or 2003 (I think), but I can no longer remember why. I think I just needed to get something out on paper from beginning to end after several months of not writing. At 850 words, it’s a little longer than the flash fictions I’ve been posting. But I really like it, and hope you will too.

I guess the theme for this week’s fiction is the sea.

TIDAL

She came from near the sea. The water was in her blood. He loved that about her.

In the mornings she was placid like a cold mountain lake. To intrude on her, to touch her, was a sacrilege he could never perpetrate. He would wake before her and lie still. Near her. Votive. Her still form taught him all he knew about nature. At times, she would stretch and pour herself over him and she was a draught to cure everything. But hers was a body of water and usually she went straight to the shower instead. She left the door open and he knew that was for him, so he could listen to the irregular pounding of the water on the tub basin as she interrupted the steady warm hiss from above. He would turn onto his back in the middle of their shared bed and slide back down the line of waking to that sound. Once, near the start of their days together, she had emerged from that steamy womb naked and drenched and dripping. She left water prints on the carpet and pulled the sheets off his body and laid herself over him, soaking the bed. Foot to foot, belly to belly, cheek to cheek, lip to lip. Her wet hair was cold against his neck, but her body was warmer than usual from the shower. He remembered that every morning. Usually she came out dry and he would go to make breakfast while she dressed.

During the day she was like a river. She would set a course for herself, always different, but always following certain patterns. Once the course was set she followed it implacably. She was as committed to her play as to her work, and when her course placed him between her shores it was always an adventure. He felt like a character in a story. When her course took her elsewhere, though, he had learned not to interfere. It was not as if he could, anyway.

In the evening she was like the tide, inevitably drawing him to her. He was the shore and she was the sea. Sometimes the waves of their meeting were gentle: he would build a fire and she would read to him. They would talk and laugh. Sometimes the air would tremble as if the room were enraged and they would crash against one another.

When he laid his ear against the skin under her breasts she didn’t sound like blood and breathing, but like the waters of the deep. She filled him to bursting, but around the edges he was withered by sorrow. He wanted to be in her completely and to breathe her fully into the depths of his lungs. But she was a force of nature and he knew she could no more be possessed than a hurricane.

And he was right. Eventually her ebb and flow began to take her away. Eventually some nights he would fall asleep and she would still be gone. Eventually she left, and all he had was her imprint creased across his life.

He understood. He understood her as much as any man could.

But two days later he used the wrong towel and it still smelled like her and his heart broke. He died and his body was left to roam the house like a ghost.

Sometimes it would build a fire and read to itself. Once it poured water over the bed and laid there until it began to shiver. Then it took a hot shower. It air-dried because it had torn the towel rack off the wall some time ago.

Finally it had done everything empty flesh can do. It had touched every item in the home and broken anything delicate. It had consumed everything in the pantry and freezer and refrigerator. It had stopped wearing clothes. It had pulled up the carpet in one corner of the living room. It could never seem to get enough to drink. So it went upstairs and began to fill the tub. It emptied the medicine cabinet, then climbed into the water and slid beneath the surface, listening to the sound of it’s own breathing in its ears.

He watched his body with a certain sadness. It’s hair formed a cloudy halo around its head. If only it had known sooner it would find heaven in the deep. He had tried to contain nature and it had burst him from the inside. Finally his heart was quiet.

Downstairs she was knocking on the front door. Even the tides are subject to gravity and after a time she was pulled here again. It was strange that he did not answer. He had always been here. Before leaving she laid her hand flat against the door as if to feel for him, as if it could tell her where he’s gone.

If someone had been standing in the foyer, they might have commented that the growing water stain on the ceiling above the hearth looked like a hand print. For a little while, at least.

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