Another Place

She stood on the hilltop looking out to the ocean.  The sun appeared in the same place every day, rising up from the water like an alien ship. It was so bright, it made her eyes burn, but as soon as she realised they were burning, she would find herself somewhere else.

There was a café by the quayside where she would sit with a cup of iced tea at a small wooden table that had only one chair.  Overhead the seagulls would circle the air as they waited for the fishing boats to come in with their morning haul.  They would shriek and cry out in their shrill voices - sometimes it was as if they were calling out to her, but she could never quite make out the words.  She thought that she had understood once what words were and what they meant, yet for some reason she didn't anymore.

These days she would just think something and it would become her reality.  One day, for example, she was thinking about horses and all at once she found herself in a vast meadow surrounded by the creatures.  Their lithe bodies moved around her.  She pulled herself up on to the back of a grey mare and rode through the meadow and down to the ocean. There the birds were again, opening their sharp yellow beaks, their beady eyes trained on her as they cried.  Somehow they always looked different, yet they were oddly familiar.

The ocean made a peculiar noise, the waves moving over stones sounded like water being poured in to a glass.

She slipped down from the horse and walked to the water's edge, letting the small waves lap over her bare feet.  She blinked and the horse wandered away.  A lone gull remained in the air circling above her head.  It was calling out.

It was saying a word.

The word it was saying was "Jessica", but she didn't understand what the word meant

                                                                      ******************************

Jessica's Mother poured herself a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table and took her daughter's hand.  She looked so pale and small underneath the hospital covers, surrounded by helium balloons and soft toy animals -mainly horses, still attached to their gift tags bearing optimistic messages.

The room was getting lighter.  It must be morning, she thought absently.  Time seemed to have no concept since the accident.  Days existed and then ceased to exist, people came and went whilst the girl remained motionless, lost in another time and place.

Her mother was gazing at the child's face when it happened - almost imperceptible but it happened.

She blinked. Did she blink?

"Jessica!" Her mother cried out.  "Jessica!"

450 Words


Written for "Invalid Item"  with the prompt - "Write a story where the main character is without speech"