“WINTER LIPS” By Richard M. Ankers

The seething heat made a false sea fret of the meadows. I had to stop myself from throwing stones into the imagined waves. The sun was up there somewhere, its solar radiation tearing through the atmosphere to drain my every fluid, as though reclaiming the atoms we stole from it at birth as sweat, then steam. I was used to such things, of course, but today they felt different.

I wandered out of my garden and took the road rather than that turbulent ocean of mist and fog and dreams. This led to the lake at the bottom of the lane. There was never anyone there. Here, the water lapped against the stranded waterside stones with gentle slaps to their smooth, rounded faces; the memories returned.

She hated it when I flip-flopped, thought for myself, dallied, and dared a rebellion. Her face would contort like a hairband wound about a teenage girl’s wrist. Sanity diminished with every new twist. Her eyes bulged. She did nothing to contain her contempt, as in turn, I did nothing to contain my regret.

I sat by the water and watched the gloom dissipate to a tungsten sky, heavy with the weight of the universe. She was up there somewhere, probably fuming still, jabbing at my arms, spiting insults.

A slap of water. A spit of spray.

I huffed. In many ways, she epitomised the changeable water, a volatile necessity. No! It was always the scorching heat. She burned every man she touched. I was just the last of them. I was the one that placed her in the cold, damp earth when her heart exploded. The one who got close enough to know the truth long before the end.

I looked out at what for a few precious weeks we’d termed ‘Our lake’ and felt her winter lips upon me once more. There was no heat. For me, there never had been.

Copyright © 2023 Richard M. Ankers
All Rights Reserved

Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals Series and Britannia Unleashed. Richard has featured in Expanded Field Journal, Love Letters To Poe, Spillwords, and feels privileged to have appeared in many more. Richard lives to write.

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Editor: Barbara Harris Leonhard 

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