Entry #174

Oubliette
by A. Silvestri


We stride slender and branded on the beach. This is us as we conceive. Waves thundering towards eternity, carrying but a slight hint of sunblock and almonds vaporized from our bodies. My foot in her soles imprint. The solemn night of deadening promises is my prime thought, like a number which only has two divisors: 1 and itself. My voice is hoarse, as I speak for the first time.

“Do you remember the silhouette dotted across the trees?”

“How could I not”

I nod with a long sigh, a sigh that doesn't match the burning sand between my toes. My throat is sore from too many cigarettes.

“The bird took flight when he died. Like it had been lurking. It waited, until we looked”

Her eyes wander across my body, exposed to the rays of the sun. They glitter, with very old tears that have already been cried too many times.

“Perhaps it shielded him from harm. Carried him safely to another place”

I never cried. If I cried, I would lose him forever. What remains of him stays hidden in the tear ducts that leads across my veins into the right chamber of my heart.

“It took him. And we did nothing” I yell

Tears burst like grenades. She falls to her knees.
I beside her. We kiss.
This is us, a sad rerun. This is us as we conceive the past.


(A. Silvestri is a 32-year-old teacher living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been published in seven anthologies, mostly science-fiction and horror. One of his short stories, When The Musics Over, has won a Danish award for “best original short story in one of the fantastic genres”. He is, at the moment, working on an anthology and anxiously awaiting the release of aforementioned short story on the American market. Although it has been postponed, it should hit the shelves before easter.)