The splash – by Angela Sidoti

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER`

What surprised me was the splash, for that is all I remember of what happened. My next memory, as misplaced as it may have been, was the glitter of water across her neck as she lay cold and childlike on the weathered boards of the dock. She was waiting ; waiting to have her diamonds returned to her neck or waiting to be resuscitated. I couldn’t tell which.

I found myself stumbling along the road which led from the dock back to my house. It was rough and irregular. I wouldn’t have been the first to trip on it, but to trip so continually without so much as a solitary pint in my belly, was testament to the shock I was in. All I could think of was the glint of water beads and then the bare sickly coloured skin  of her neck, and as those images rose to my consciousness so too did the cobblestones, again and again, to trip me all the way to my front door. With my head in my hands I crouched down to wait against it and as I did so, out of my pocket spilled that lady’s jewels, grotesque and innocent as they hit the sandstone threshold and glinted up at me.

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