Flash Fiction: Waves at Midnight by Sharon T. Rose
The waves at midnight have a peculiar glow to them. Maybe it's the effect of three moons fighting to control the waves, maybe it's the pollution. Maybe it's my imagination.
I walk the beach late at night as often as I can. Sometimes the local mutt will join me, and we'll walk for a few miles before parting ways. It's peaceful at midnight, when no one else is awake and the hovers are parked and the sky ships don't sail and there's no noise but the ocean and the wind and the mutt's occasional barking at something.
Once in a while I'll find something the waves brought in. Broken wood from a ship, weeds, dead fish. Once I found a body, a person who'd died and decomposed so much you couldn't tell how he'd died. The ocean gives little and takes much. I take what peace it offers and don't ask for much more.
Sometimes I walk on the dry sand, sometimes on the wet sand. Sometimes the waves lap over my feet, dragging the short hairs of my feet, pulling away the impurities of life. It's as close to cleansing as I will ever come.
So I walk the beach at midnight, watching the waves and listening to the wind. I let the mutt follow its nose and do whatever it wants to. I enjoy the hours of peace and don't ask for more.
~~~~~~~
(inspired by the +Flash Fiction Project)
I walk the beach late at night as often as I can. Sometimes the local mutt will join me, and we'll walk for a few miles before parting ways. It's peaceful at midnight, when no one else is awake and the hovers are parked and the sky ships don't sail and there's no noise but the ocean and the wind and the mutt's occasional barking at something.
Once in a while I'll find something the waves brought in. Broken wood from a ship, weeds, dead fish. Once I found a body, a person who'd died and decomposed so much you couldn't tell how he'd died. The ocean gives little and takes much. I take what peace it offers and don't ask for much more.
Sometimes I walk on the dry sand, sometimes on the wet sand. Sometimes the waves lap over my feet, dragging the short hairs of my feet, pulling away the impurities of life. It's as close to cleansing as I will ever come.
So I walk the beach at midnight, watching the waves and listening to the wind. I let the mutt follow its nose and do whatever it wants to. I enjoy the hours of peace and don't ask for more.
~~~~~~~
(inspired by the +Flash Fiction Project)
