Short Little Stories

Michael’s son is vanishing into the ocean. Michael knows he should be screaming in desperation, reaching out hopelessly to clutch at the fading figure – but he simply stands there, watching the blue waves grow deeper, and hearing them grow louder, and feeling them crash upon the sands and cast stinging turquoise foam into his eyes.

He wakes up, the same as every time the dream has come. He does not wake with a sudden start. He isn’t tangled in his bed from a night of fevered dreaming. He simply opens his eyes and looks at the patched and dirty white of the ceiling. He feels his heart beating in his chest, and wonders – as he always does – at the dream. He has no son. He doesn’t know what the dream is supposed to mean, or why it keeps haunting him.

He sits up in bed… and the room spins. Today is different, something is out of place, and he is nearly overwhelmed by a sensation of dizziness as he feels something wet dripping down his shirt. He reaches up to find blood leaking from his nose.

And saltwater dripping from his hair.