That image is what Anna Kyle sent me when I asked her for an #UnderGlass prompt. My theme for this session of writing under glass is ‘She’s on the Bottom‘ and thus far mostly I’ve interpreted that to mean she is submissive but I wanted to do something a bit different with this one.
For this story, which I’ve titled Of Water, she’s on the bottom means that she’s reached rock bottom. There’s a risk that this tale might be too depressing to be sexy, but I really enjoyed writing it and (SPOILERS!) I was aiming for a light at the end of the tunnel kinda ending. I look forward to hearing people’s reactions once the story is released.
The first draft is finished and is about 3,200 words long. That makes it the first actual short story I’ve written for this short story challenge LOL I’ll type it up and make it available for sponsorship later this week but for now I wanted to offer a bit of an excerpt 🙂
Excerpt from Of Water:
She was drowning in stars. The water lapping at her toes, eating at the sand from beneath her bare feet, was black. A black background which reflected the countless stars and galaxies from the midnight blue dome which surrounded her. Though she wondered at it, it seemed right somehow, that the ocean was darker than the sky. The ocean had long been both her sanctuary and her looking glass–reflecting her moods back at her.
She’d stood here, right here, the day she’d brought Payton home from the hospital. The sun at warmed their shoulders, their faces, as she showed her the seals lounging on the rocks, the gulls pirouetting in the sky.
The morning Jef’s ship came in without him–rogue wave his captain said. Tried everything–the sea had been roiling and grey. Smashing into the rocks, punishing them. Tonight it was dark, nearly still as if it was empty of everything but the star’s cold light–
She, Mara, she was of water. It was her element. Payton, however, Payton was of fire. Raising her alone was difficult, their natures the opposites of one another. It was difficult but they muddled through. Sometimes, when it was at its most challenging, when Payton’s fiery nature steamed all her patience away and calm explanations turned to screaming recriminations, Mara would flee the house, the person she’d become, and seek refuge in the sea. She would plunge herself into its depths, become weightless, free or sit on the rocks, watch the waves, the sea life–sometimes she even thought the seals looked sympathetic to her struggles. Or, one seal anyway.
They fought hard, but they loved harder. No matter what life threw at them, or they at each other, their love never floundered and their good times outnumbered their bad. They’d built sand castles on this beach, and bonfires. Memories. A life.
Then cancer had stolen it all away.
…sounds pretty depressing right? And it gets worse before it gets better but I think the journey is a beautiful one just the same 🙂
