When the Sailor Came to Shore
A short story
I knew he was the one because he smelled like salt. I could taste it on the wind, wafting towards me, even as I took over the sky. He came down over the mountain, saw the signs but didn’t heed them, the acrid smell in the air, the way the sky turned brown. But when he saw me dancing, he couldn’t ignore it any longer. I turned around and saw him. For a moment, everything stopped. Would’ve gone out right there on the spot. I saw him, and I knew.
I stretched my arms out and called to him, asked him for his name. He turned and ran, shouting, “What the devil’s wrong with it?” Climbed back over the mountain and ran away while everyone else was running.
Smoke rolled out along the valley like the long train of a wedding dress, leading all the way to an empty altar. I ate through the trees, leaping from one to the next as fast as oxygen would carry me, trying to catch a glimpse of his sun-bleached hair and that smile like the foam on a crashing wave, one last look before he disappeared back over the horizon.
“Never should’ve come to shore,” he said with a laugh dry enough to kindle, without even a glance back at me.
He left, went West, as far as you can go, into the waiting arms of the sea, onto his ship and the world that smells like salt. The one place where I couldn’t call…
