Historical Setting: Rocky tidal waters, another time
Dawn casts light though I don’t remember sleeping.
I must have been mentioned by the person who glimpsed at the leftovers of me, even with all the shudders and shrieks of his own fears of death, because now someone is looking for me.
He comes with a prodding pole and a threshing sledge, with a rope and a rolling log for heavy loads. May I be such a heavy load? All I know is my sense, my eye and the sounds and smells of sea. Maybe that is all I am now.
He finds my hand. He doesn’t seem afraid of this place that I am between life and death. He holds my hand in his hands as though mine is a precious find. His hands are warm. Mine must be very cold. There should be speaking now. But there are no words.
He is a stout little fellow, smells of wool. Seems to be made in three rough round orbs stacked one on the next like rocks turned into a cairn or an altar. The hood of his head encircles the rosy orbs of his face — circle within circle — broad pink cheeks, separated by a red ball of a nose. His little bright eyes glint steely blue from the deep tuck between his cheeks and the fold of his forehead. He grunts and pants with the work of pulling all of me onto the boards of the sledge, but he doesn’t offer any words. Even though we both look at one another exploring our likeness of species, one to the other, there is no word between us.
I mean to cry out with the pain of it all but I seem not to make a sound.
He takes his prod and returns to the edge of the water. He turns over one clump after another of slippery black weed and drops them back into the tide pools. Could it be he is searching for some mislaid toe or limb I hadn’t even realized was lost? Or possibly he has a hope that others have washed up as well. He is likely searching for another heap of bones and flesh leftover from the wreck.
But I know, I alone survived. Cloothar was clinging to his treasure, sinking fast, surely lost. I know no one will find him on this shore.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 
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