Embers
BY Willowfly
There's so much he can't remember. Frayed like tangled string. Some, cut off like a knife, like a crack that spreads and deepens, eating away the edges of smoldering pages until nothing else remains. Some, a sound byte, a sea of fragments he's been forced to stow away, save again for a later day until the world becomes tangible again.
A blur of faces flash through his dreams like hurricane winds, melting together- hands, breath, words, a touch, running through like rivers to the ocean moors. Unyielding. The ships come and go, but he's stuck standing on the gray-lit shores.
His eyes flutter open, only for a crack of light. He can see his brother's face through the dusky haze, but he can't see the eyes. Clouded. The soft familiarity of his father's weathered shoulder pressed against his cheek. The musty smell of faded robes remembers well the child he once was not so long ago. A gentle touch from knotty paw and the warm embrace of a blanket draped across his shoulders reminds him well of days. But exhaustion pulls like a heavy weight. The sound of copter's blades sings a makeshift lullaby.