River Coral

The needles are coming. She tries to tell Simon that they make her brain feel smooth and gritty, like all the little ridges have been worn away and there is sand left behind, but the words sound odd and muffled to her ears, like they were spoken underwater, and Simon looks at her with blank incomprehension in his eyes.

She saw a brain once, a pickled specimen on a school trip even though using real human cadavers for medical research is archaic and barbaric. It fascinated her, floating in the liquid with all its little ridges. She had reached out for the jar, but the teacher yelled at her. She had been yelled at the other time she had reached out for a brain, too, but that time it had been brain coral, scuba diving when she was eight, and only her father grabbing her arm had saved her from touching the stinging surface.

Simon is approaching her with the needle, he obviously wasn't listening to what she said. She tries again, "Coral, washed up on the beach, and broken and worn smooth, and the needles are full of sand, and the beach is full of sand, and there is sand everywhere, and the coral is covered in it!"

She looks into Simon's sad, confused eyes as he gives her the shot.