I'll Haunt You

The singer sat on a bed of rocks, the salt and wind caught up to mess his hair, he looked out on the sea. He felt about ready to retch, from his thoughts or from the view he didn't know, things were getting too wound up in one another. The blue expanse stared him back, maddening, it was everywhere he could see.

He dare not look back behind him.

"Salawan," she'd said, "sometimes I still miss it at night."
"How can you miss anything when I'm there at your side?" He'd remembered saying those words, but now he wasn't so sure, his voice sounded different and there was something odd about his eyes, he was sure that was another person. Or maybe he was a different person now, looking out over the sea, a shimmer of gold a preposterous thing in his dirty hands.

Salawan was the place she missed, but it wasn't a place he cared to look back on. Carved of rock by the see, the town was all crags, cold and hard and pitted by the weather. Buildings grew out of stone, or maybe it was the other way around, Tomas didn't care to dwell on it, didn't care to look back.

He could feel the eyes on his back, he could feel the ghost in his mind, and like a child panicked in the dark he cast away that glimmer of gold out into the sea. It swallowed it up without a word back of reply, only that same cold glare as it stretched out forever.

Maybe now it'll be over, the singer thought. All I wanted was a kiss, I never wanted this. He brushed his lips with his thumb and remembered her kiss, soft and sweet and nothing like this place she'd brought him too. This place where he couldn't find the music. Everywhere he went he found a beat, he found a rhythm, and with his lute and five helpers he could paint a picture.

Not here.

Maybe not ever again, he thought and he shivered, and for an instant he thought he could feel her right there beside him again like it always was. In the end, the night came and the singer got up and left. The sea swallowed a memory, but the girl followed him home.