She leaned in near to the mirror, applying coral lipstick and perfecting it with the tip of her finger. She would leave in a minute to watch the boats come in.
In summer, tourists gathered at the docks with their cameras, waiting for husbands and sons to come back from a rousing day at sea. Wobbling on deck, pink and sun stroked, the boys held up trigger fish with bulging eyes and rectums, the pressure of their ascent having killed them from the inside.
Men wanted to be fishermen. That was a truth about life she'd always known.
She didn't crane her neck and shield her eyes against the sun. She wasn't new to the arrival of the boats. Her husband, he had a child somewhere. He left a woman and their home. He bought a boat, now stained green and weathered with time. He was a captain, and didn't love anything but the rock and moan of the inlet, the feathery kiss of sea spray off the bow. And her; he must have loved her.
He hadn't been happy in a home with a fence and a garden. He took pills. He stole from their savings account. He might have been happy, but he was locked in on all sides and it gave him fever. He collapsed on the kitchen floor and broke his nose. His little girl slipped in the blood. He made them cry and that drowned his heart forever.
She put on lipstick because he liked it. It reminded him of the first time they met. She'd been one of those waving women, squealing over the day's catch sliding against the splintery surface of the pier.
He'd taken her out on his boat, telling her to hold on to the railing as they passed through the channel. She reached for him, instead, the tight cord of his forearm. She kissed him, and kissed him, wearing a patch of skin raw on her chin, and lipstick the color of coral.
------------------------------------
This is my entry in this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge. The deal is that you have to write a story, using 33-333 words, and using the third definition of a given word. This week's word was new.
I haven't been able to get the idea of fishermen out of my head, even though I learned last week that I get sea sick.
-
Maybe you were a woman of the sea in a prior life. This was achingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteReally nice!
ReplyDeleteWhy I like this this piece--The lives are foreshortened to the essentials of the relationship of the two characters and reflected in the lure of the untameable sea.
ReplyDeleteHe was trying to romance her. Bring her into his world, not just looking on and waving from the pier. Did she soften him? I love everything about the sea.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and hard at the same time. I particularly love the fourth paragraph talking about his loves.
ReplyDeletethis is sad. They are both being people other than they are when it comes to their relationship. He accepted it and went back to his life, the one that made him happy...she is still deluded into thinking coral lipstick will fix it all.
ReplyDeleteThis is fucking gorgeous, honey. I'm always a big fan of the little fractures that sort of move away from the main narrative and provide a history. And, here, those little one-sentence pieces are SO vivid and deep-cutting. "He collapsed on the kitchen floor and broke his nose. His little girl slipped in the blood." So brilliant. You're perfect.
ReplyDeleteI love the way the fish whose ascent killed them seem to mirror the death of the couple's relationship, down to the husband's blood making the daughter fall and cry.
ReplyDeleteI love this writing.
ReplyDeleteAgain, your descriptions amaze me: the fish dying on the inside, the blood on the floor, the coral (nice touch, that) lipstick, the cord on his arm. You have an amazing eye for those details.
ReplyDeleteI love this. I want to read more about them. I feel like I can smell sweaty men and the sea.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Kurt.
ReplyDeleteI could totally drown in your words, Amanda, and do it happily.
I really, REALLY love this. A woman who knows her man well enough to "let him go" so he can fulfill himself. And she still knows what he needs when he comes home.
ReplyDeleteLovely imagery throughout, as always. The line that stuck out to me particularly was, 'the rock and moan of the inlet, the feathery kiss of sea spray off the bow'.
ReplyDeleteThat picked me up and slammed me down right on the deck of a boat. It also had Brandy playing in my head as the soundtrack.
Thanks for sharing. Come back, we need more of your words.
Very sad. Beautiful imagery and symbolism. Excellent work!
ReplyDelete