I rented the same beach house as the one we vacationed at fourteen years ago. That was the last summer for the five of us, the one before the children began disengaging from Tyler and I. The one of our last togetherness.
We would find beach glass or sea glass on our vacations. Objects which were shipwreck rubbish smoothed by a patinum, a sea glass woman, who changed the discarded beer bottles and plastic litter into beach jewels. The folklore was a more romantic story than how their troves of “Mermaid Tears” had really come into existence–as beachgoers’ garbage reformed by the briny waters. Our crafted memories.
At home, I had a glass canister of rare blues, greens, and one exceptional violet piece, sitting on my nightstand as a shrine. The children might like to have it. Later.
I, however, was no longer valuable. My children had outgrown me and I had outgrown my marriage. I had an occupation, not a vocation. Everything felt hollow all the time until one spring night, I lost myself staring at the blues and greens nestled in clear mother glass by my bedside.
I then knew how to seal my internal void.
I told Tyler I needed a break, a solo trip this fall, after our youngest was dropped off at college. He indifferently agreed over his tablet. I couldn’t remember when our companionship had shifted into only this logistical partnership.
Now, I wander the chilling ocean’s edge, damp sand beneath my feet. A last memory with no sustainability as tomorrow morning, I will wake, I will have a hard drink for warmth, then I will walk into the water’s cold, pacific embrace.
***
Vodka warms my veins as I hazily wander from the beach house to the shoreline. The sun commands the sky with pinks and tangerines, rippling the ocean in glitter. I take a deep breath, then step forward.
But a lurid creature emerges from the water. Feminine in shape, naked with shards of sea glass for flesh. She walks towards me, purposefully. I step backwards, tripping my left over my right foot. The damp sand soaks through the seat of my jeans.
The patinum strides until she is in front of me. She tilts her head, observing me with her violet orbs. Her beauty, her grace. I should be terrified as this man-made demigoddess stands over me, but I’m not.
The sea glass woman reaches beside me, plucking a bottle cap from the sand, slipping it deftly into her mouth. She smiles with shiny ombre lips, digesting the detritus. Her oceanic eyes twinkle. The patinum opens her mouth again, retrieving the cap which is now a polished aqua stone. She hands it to me. Without a sound beyond the ocean’s grumble, she saunters back into the waters. She is a goddess reentering her domain.
I sit throughout the rest of the day, sobered and awed. When the ocean swallows the sun in reds, pinks, and oranges, a bit of aqua in my palm, I take a long inhale of salted air into my lungs, then finally abandon my vantage point of the ethereal world to go home to reclaim my own.
L.T. Ward (she/her) is a neurodivergent writer who mostly writes speculative fiction and horror while spending her days creating shenanigans in a university library, raising her children, and satisfying her never-ending thirst for knowledge through reading, meeting people, and first-hand life experiences. She has several published short stories in the literary, horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction genres. Readers can find her on Twitter: @LTWard2 or her website: ltwardwriter.com.
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