the tide

4/25/20 - Writing exercise where we weren’t allowed to use any narrative pronouns (I, you, he, she, they, it). I COMPLETELY failed at this without even realizing it - much more difficult than I thought it’d be!

The memory begins with death. A howling. The sound of metal against stone. The sort of bright darkness that happens when the mind can dream of the color white while the eyes are still closed.

It begins with a sword, and the girl that pulled it from the shore. Sand, salt, sea scraping under tender knees so pale they color from the movement. 

The memory colors as a god falls, a plummeting gold teardrop in the sky that, for just a moment, halves the world in two. The once placid ocean arcing in the sky, threatening to swallow and reclaim, sea foam curling, spitting, writhing from its place crowned at the forefront of the wave. The girl watches it all with disinterest. Raises the sword. Meets the crest when the sea falls. Drowns.

From the depths, a glow. Almost sunlight. Warm and hazy and clean. It sucks in the ocean again, draws it back to a new source. Honeyed light turns blue, slants, disappears. There is only the dull roar of the ocean that exists now.

When the tides recede, the girl and the god lay side by side on the shore. Between their curled bodies, the sword. It looks pure to the point of unholiness next to the two, so white it pierces the gaze and swallows the world around it. The memory becomes edged in darkness, reaching to meet the white of the sword at its center. A destruction of an island with only two.

Before the whole memory is swallowed whole, burnt away, torn from history-

The god raises a hand to the girl’s cheek, and smiles.