101 Words

The waves continue to wash ashore. I see them crashing against a sea-side rocky cliff, splashing white foam. Now, they’re nearing. Mist-like droplets strike me, peeling away the harsh sunray’s damage before receding. Looking up, I see seagulls flying in an indigo sky. I hear them talking. But I don’t understand their melodic cadences. In the evening, pinkish crabs nibble at my feet, looking for sustenance. The waves come again. I feel small fish tickle my sides.

The ocean announces, “It’s time.”

As I wait, one final wave engulfs me. I begin to disintegrate into nothingness, one grain at a time.

The purple dahlia shakes off flecks of morning dew collected on her petals and stretches her arms.

“Rise and shine,” she sings to the rest of the garden. “Time to wake.”

A sudden shower of water leaves her spluttering mid-sentence.

“Here comes the gardener,” groan the red roses, bracing for their turn. “He drenches us with so much water, it is a fight to survive.”

“What would you girls do without me?” the gardener asks, his nose up in the air. “You all would die.” The grey sky descends in a drizzle. He scurries for cover.

The flowers dance in joy.

Joe panicked as he searched for his ten-year-old son. People scrambled past him up the beach, hauling rafts and toddlers and screaming about the shark.

“Caleb!” Joe hollered as he crumpled onto the sand. He looked up and saw something red in the churning waters. “Oh please, God, save my Caleb.”

Nearby, a distraught woman said, “Yes, officer. I saw him. He tried to grab the floatie, but it was too late.”

Joe fell to his face, wailing.

The witness continued. “He’s—he was—a hero. He got between the shark and that little boy and shoved him toward the shore.”

My mind is full of holes, moth-eaten, ratty at the edges.

Today the supermarket aisle is as empty as a hospital bed.

I look at the tin of SPC peaches in my hand, but now it’s only half a tin.

Grass has started to sprout through the floor; the trolley has become an aluminium frame that I push with difficulty past granite memories like sign-posts whipping by.

The grass is greener on the other side, reduced to one lush rectangle.

She tugs my arm impatiently.

“Let’s go, grandma.”

“I thought I could hear grandpa’s voice.”

“What did he say?”

“To come straight home.”

Erica’s pet peeve was her husband’s constant use of the words “and whatnot” after every sentence. “Honey, are you doing laundry today—and whatnot?”

After twelve years of marriage, Erica calculated she heard that term over fifty thousand times. Most days, Erica was only mildly irritated: between their jobs and commuting, they were lucky if they spent three hours a day together.

Due to the Coronavirus, they were now working from home and spending twenty-four hours a day together, so when Bob asked, “Honey, what are you working on—and whatnot,” her computer screen read, ‘Fifty Ways to Murder a Husband.’

Raj was always busy since he immigrated to the USA many years ago. The lockdown had given him too much free time. There were fewer excuses. He missed his parents, and their memories often floated around. He laughed, remembering how afraid of lizards he was as a kid. His parents had to check the bedroom and toilet several times to make sure he didn’t freak out. Thunder distracted him for a moment, and he noticed a lizard climbing the window. He was not afraid. He almost felt at home with his parents, until a moment later, when rain washed it away.