The Red Urchins | fairytales for the dark
Flos and Althea, sisters who live by the sea.
Flos falls ill, a sickness that rouses convulsions and draws tears in the night; there is no cure but the juice of a particular red urchin that lives in a tempestuous stretch of sea.
And so Althea abandones their fishing, and goes out each day in their little bark to the stretch of water; and Flos would wait near the margent of the shore with a flashlight each night — an anticipating lighthouse.
Thea told her sister that she would sail out further, and perhaps she’d have ‘better luck’; Flos could not speak for the suffering was too much that night, but through her eyes Althea caught glimpses of bitterness, anger and pleading and regret.
But alas she goes, rowing through the night wind and through the waves; and when Flos wakes alone her heart grew pallid, the day wanes and the waves draw back to the shore and the oblique mist thickens and thickens, until there is no difference between sky and sea.
The wind blows up the waves and sand, she on the shore drops her flashlight and picks up the revolver; fuelled by passion and ecstasy and pain the sharp sound daubs the shoreline in a smudge of dull red, and echoes deep into the sea.
As the last of the flames die down a vessel nears the shore, the stern dips against the charred sands; the boat lies empty save for a glistening pile of red sea-urchins.
Flos and Althea, sisters who lived by the sea; they owned nothing, left nothing and so the world moved on.
Flos and Althea, sisters who live by the sea; they own a single skiff, battered and worn, which they use to fish.
Flos falls ill, a sickness that rouses convulsions and draws tears in the night; there is no cure but the juice of a particular red urchin that lives in a tempestuous stretch of sea.
And so Althea abandones their fishing, and goes out each day in their little bark to the stretch of water; and Flos would wait near the margent of the shore with a flashlight each night — an anticipating lighthouse.
Thea told her sister that she would sail out further, and perhaps she’d have ‘better luck’; Flos could not speak for the suffering was too much that night, but through her eyes Althea caught glimpses of bitterness, anger and pleading and regret.
But alas she goes, rowing through the night wind and through the waves; and when Flos wakes alone her heart grew pallid, the day wanes and the waves draw back to the shore and the oblique mist thickens and thickens, until there is no difference between sky and sea.
The wind blows up the waves and sand, she on the shore drops her flashlight and picks up the revolver; fuelled by passion and ecstasy and pain the sharp sound daubs the shoreline in a smudge of dull red, and echoes deep into the sea.
As the last of the flames die down a vessel nears the shore, the stern dips against the charred sands; the boat lies empty save for a glistening pile of red sea-urchins.
Flos and Althea, sisters who lived by the sea; they owned nothing, left nothing and so the world moved on.
