* * * *
Through the falling ash, Marc walks across the empty parking lot. No one tries to stop him. Beyond the lot he finds tall grass swaying gently in the breeze. He smells the ocean. It’s close.
Grass becomes dunes. He climbs up, struggling for purchase in the shifting sand, past the overturned and rotting carcass of a familiar automobile, and continues to the summit, where he gazes down across a long stretch of empty beach and placid ocean beyond. The wind catches his hair and face, and he breathes it in deeply, filling his lungs. He looks back at the car only once more, studies it for a time then proceeds down the side of the dune to the beach below.
As he stands near the shoreline, waves lapping his feet, Marc undresses, remembering these very winds blowing in off the Atlantic while lying in bed with Brooke on summer nights. Soft, hot wind, as he remembers, blowing gently through their bedroom, disturbing delicate chimes she’d hung just outside the window near their bed. He remembers awakening to the winds and the ethereal chime-songs, and watching Brooke sleep, curled up on her side, knees drawn in tight. Before the whales… before the blood… and yet in this moment it all seems so close, forged together into a single entity, a long and winding thread running through the remnants of a thoroughly shattered life, which of course it is.
He looks back over his shoulder at the dunes. Three figures in shrouded hoods stand watching. The first looks to the left, the second faces him and the third looks to the right… Urd to the past, Verdandi to the present, Skuld to the future.
He blinks and they’re gone.
Marc slowly walks into the surf. Despite how cold and gripping the water is, once it reaches his calves he dives through an incoming wave and swims to deeper water.
Guide me gently…
He breaks the surface, draws breath and bobs along the waves, letting the sea carry him away. Arms making slow arcing motions to cut the water and legs treading beneath, he looks to the gray sky and the setting sun.
Darkness is coming, night eternal. But he feels neither pain nor fear.
Not anymore. Not ever again.
…softly over to Thy Kingdom shore…
Marc closes his eyes and lets the ocean take him, forcing himself beneath the surface, spiraling down into another kind of darkness, one he embraces even as his muscles grow tired, his body weakens and his lungs ache and burn for oxygen that will never arrive.
If Brooke were with me, she’d hold my hand and we’d cling to each other. Looking into each other’s eyes, we’d let the sea take us. Together. And nothing else would matter. Only this moment… only us… safe in each other’s love.
But not this time, my love…
Submerged, the ocean is below, above and all around him.
But he is not alone. The whales have not abandoned him after all.
Speak to me… tell me your secrets… whisper them in my ear…
Fairytales… myths… real as the darkest woods, the deepest oceans, the most immense skies and profound as the greatest love, the utmost evil, and the ultimate sacrifice…
He remembers Brooke as he always will now, a smart, beautiful, special woman, his partner, lover and best friend, holding a puppy and looking out across the field of flowers from which she’d come, a look of confusion and, oddly, peace etched across her face as she tries to understand how she could’ve just felt him there, running his fingers through her hair and whispering to her as he so often did when they’d held each other tight. And then she’s smiling in the glow of those memories. Gone from him… but not so very far…
Free me, he tells the whales. Heal me.
And as their melancholy songs draw him closer and closer to gardens unseen, where horrors of the past hold no power and fate is not a hammer but an embrace, a kiss, the hand of one you love holding tight to your own, they do.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to Robert Dunbar, Chas Hendricksen and everyone involved with Uninvited Books. I’m honored to have my work involved in the launch of such an exciting and important new independent publishing company. Thanks also to my wife Carol, and to all my family and friends. And as always, thank you to the readers and fans all over the world for their continued loyalty and support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The son of teachers, Greg F. Gifune was educated in Boston and has lived in various places, including New York City and Peru. A trained actor, he has appeared in various stage productions and has worked in radio and television as both an on-air talent and a producer. Earlier in life he held a wide range of jobs, encompassing everything from journalism to promotions. A respected editor, he served as Editor-in-Chief of Thievin’ Kitty Publications, publishers of the magazine THE EDGE, Tales of Suspense, and currently serves as Associate Editor at Delirium Books. The author of numerous novels and two short story collections, his work has been consistently praised by critics and readers alike and has been translated into several languages. Greg and his wife Carol live in Massachusetts with a bevy of cats. Discover more about his writing at www.GregFGifune.com.
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