Embracing the Waves, by Meg Pokrass

Nocturne, Grey and Silver, by James McNeill Whistler (USA) 1873

Embracing the Waves
 
It was the first time she believed that the sea might not swallow her whole. It was also the night Ethan explained that his brothers were going to keep calling and sending over their threats. There was an electric hysteria to his voice, as if fear from the last time had become canned laughter in his ears. 
 
It was the first time their bed felt softened by cotton, cotton inside the springs that had become softer and dumber each year—cotton stuffed up against his heart. It was the first night he told her he had been fighting the blues, and this is why he hit her harder, so that she felt the shredding of an old dream; a dream that a family like hers could make itself better—the dream worn to lint in the end. 
 
It was the first time she felt that there were ways to sneak off into a glowing green morning, when the water wants you badly, and wants you still strong­­. She had always been good at seeing shades in Ethan, how they blended into each other. Today she was proud of all the colours she had once imagined her young husband could become. She patted herself on the soul, said 'you did good, you did what you could do here'— told herself that setting off in the silver-green waves was different than already being dead.

Meg Pokrass

Read Meg's story from a Renoir painting.
​www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/rose-by-meg-pokrass

​Meg Pokrass is the author of eight flash fiction collections, an award-winning collection of prose poetry,  two novellas-in-flash, an award winning collection of prose poetry, and a 2020 collection of microfiction, "Spinning to Mars" which won the Blue Light Book Award. Her work has appeared in  Electric Literature, Washington Square Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Split Lip and McSweeney'shas been anthologized in New Micro (W.W. Norton & Co., 2018), Flash Fiction International (W.W. Norton & Co., 2015) and The Best Small Fictions 2018 and 2019. She serves as Founding Co-Editor of Best Microfiction 2020 and Festival Curator of Flash Fiction Festival U.K. and teaches flash fiction online and in person. Find out more at megpokrass.com.