The Red Silt
On a Beach, Somewhere Near Dol Amroth
(Open)
Trawler-Man of Tide and Flesh. Father of the Water...
You are the Mouth Devouring and the Mouth Returning,
You stand tall at the High Tide and crawl on your belly at the Low Tide
- "The Silt Verses, Let Me Speak First of Revelations"
We sold our souls to the divinity of oceans
- "The Divinity of Oceans, AHAB"
I watch the tide as it came in at evening. Endless. Cyclical. Despairing.
Duinenthel coughed. Sea water drippled down her chin and stung. She sat on the beach, covered in seaweed and wrapped in a besoaked dress. She coughed and coughed, her lungs hacking and seizing. The sea had deposited the young(ish) woman back onto the shoreline, rejecting a final embrace and lightless cabin. Duinenthel’s breath caught her and forced her to open her eyes. The sun was low in the west. How many hours? How many days? She felt a weight on her. The sand, the seaweed, the water, even her own soul. Barely, imperceptivity, she moved. Her body screamed in protestation, agonizing as she stood, wobbled, and fell back to the earth. A wind, jittering, blew off the water and blew salt into her face. It laughed at her. What good would tears do? As much as she wished she could, not a single drop could fall from her eyes. Her lips were cracked, else she might give the shore a laugh of despairing madness.
She was alone. Where was he? He said he would never part from her. He promised. He swore. Yet, where was he?
The weight of absence took hold of her and she sank into the sand. Could she stay here? Could she let the beach swallow her whole, devour her and leave this world a little less empty?
She screamed. The scream had nothing to echo from along the empty shore, but echo it did. What sort of ghostly, unseen monoliths harried this unnamed, unimportant shore? She covered her ears as the scream reverberated off nothing and roared back at her. Anguish, betrayal, loneliness, terror, forlornity, absence, presence, pettiness, surreality, oblivion.
A crab scuttled into her presence. It looked at her quizzically. Was she food? Was she a predator? It clambered and pinched her leg. She yelped and kicked it. Shocked, the crab scuttled away a few paces. Then stopped. It considered her again. Inhuman eyes watched her. She watched the crab. What did it want? It took a tentative step closer. She hissed at it. It did not take a step back.
The tide came in, frothy water washed over the two observers, unnoted by either. The world was erased and smoothed out, made new and unreal.
Duinenthel stood up again. Shakily.
He was gone. He left her. He lied to her when he told her they would go together. A cold rage boiled in her stomach. She retched sea water. The crab, having moved closer while she was occupied with her balance, was baptized in the spume. She took no notice of the crab until it pinched her bare foot. Blood mixed with the sand and salty foam across the crab’s claw.
Neither of them moved in that moment. She did not move her foot away and the crab did not advance nor did he pinch her again. How long did the two antagonists stare at each other? Minutes? Hours? The sea raged and whined around them, frustrated into a secondary character in any tale.
“I told you already, I gave myself to the sea and you spat me back out! You rejected me! You promised me music and you gave me nothing but silence! How long did I breath in your salty promises only the be spat out?”
The crab did not move.