Charcoal Water

A child is disturbing creatures hidden in shells down by the edge of the ocean. They call him Cyril. His mother stands over him and stares at the water (though she isn't really seeing). A cigarette is caught between lightly parted lips and the cluster of embers at the end flares up and dies down with the woman's breath. Unmoving, ash-coloured clouds streak across slate skies while charcoal waters crash against the cliff on which the mother and child remain. A sudden gelid breeze sends and icy flutter down the woman's spine. The chill nips at her face, but the pain doesn't register.

The child looks up, no longer occupied with jabbing shellfish with damp twigs.

"Mummy?" The woman is startled. The child's questioning voice echos and ricochets within her skull, jarring her back into reality. The smouldering cylinder drops from her lips and is immediately extinguished in sand.

"Yes, dear?" Her response is kind, but her voice is hollow and desolate.

"Do you love me?" the child inquires. She pauses, shocked and disgusted by his question.

"No," She responds harshly.

"Why not?"

"Because love isn't real." Detestation flashes across her ceil irises. Confused by this, the child tilts his head to the side. His golden hair shifts and falls overhis forehead.

"But then how can you break someone's heart if love isn't real?"

"You can't. It's all in your head. Just a lie." the mother responds harshly, silent tears streaking her face.

"Really? But Mummy, I thought that your heart was broken. Daddy left you and me, and broke your heart."

"Hush, Cyril..."

"That's why you never smile anymore, right?"

"Cyril, I said shut up...."

"That's why you don't love me like you use to, right?"

"Dammit Cyril!" she glares at him, and her eyes burn his insides. Unable to deal with the pain and nostalgia (he's just like his father) that Cyril brings her, she lashes out. Numb hands meet the child's shoulders with force, sending him off the edge of the cliff. The boy is far too startled to scream. His body hits the paralyzingly frigid waters with a splash. Young Cyril breaks back through the surface, gasping for air, desperately trying to stay above the waves. But the current, it's far too strong, and hypothermia seizes the body of a young child much quicker that of an adult. He cries out, only once, before he is swallowed by the tide.



That night, his mother died of a broken heart.