30 Days of Flash - #1 - CLASTIC

American flash fiction writer Nancy Stohlman has started up a useful writing prompt for those of us without the time or inclination to commit to the NaNoWriMo exercise.

FLASH-NANO gives those who've signed up, 30 days of prompts to put short stories down.

Day 1 was write a story that begins at the end.

Here's mine.

CLASTIC

Whoosh.

                I think as it happens, that’s the last thing I’ll hear. The waves crashing over me, moving over me towards the shore as I plunge further into the craved sleep.

                The sky above me is blackening. The sea reflects the sky’s mood, sympathises too with my own. This is the way, the right way out. My feet shift and slip on the small stone planets, my eyes scamper and dart as they search for the right worlds to fill my pockets with, which empty moons to take me away from this rock. Each beach is a galaxy, my father once said. The pebbles are moons, the rocks are stars and each grain of sand is everything that ever lived within.

                Finally I see one. Smooth and silent slab of stone; into the barren pocket you go. Symmetry demands more; I bend and pick with care the right number to fit inside my trouser and coat. Not frantically, these stones will see me into the darkness, so I pick them with something almost like…no, not like that at all.

                Now I am pregnant with stone.

                I turn and look back at the town, the world. No one sees me. A car drives past but does not see, does not stop. The driver doesn’t get the chance to have my final conversation, to hear my final words. What will be the last thing I say out loud?    

                Angry rain upon the sea now. Each tiny drop invisible in flight and yet the sea feeds off this assault and grows and turns towards me as I, in turn, move towards the edge, the stones jagging against my cold flesh through the thin pocket, the sky’s tears rippling the fabric of the ancient sea.

                I giggle for a moment as the wave flirts with my feet. One step, then another. I am level with the end of the pier now. I check my pocket as I would have once for keys and money.

                Water past my feet, the cold cannot shock me now. Wading slowly into the darkness, into the water, the waves bristling against my shin, now my knees. My crutch damp with death, the heaviness of each step now making itself known to something deep within me. The rocks in my long nightshirt drag me and almost trip me, but not yet. I am not ready yet.

Walk a little further with me in the rain.

                A few more steps and we’ll be home and dry. An ecstatic stumble, at last the end. I gasp as someone I used to be reaches out but the waves are stronger now, rushing me down, drenching my face, and hunting my breaths. I’m falling, sinking, ready. Above me, above the sea I see a parting of cloud, a burst of sun, another wave, lightness, dark, lightness, dark. And the sea filling my chest, stuffing my lungs with water, turning my bones to stone, to air.