[Short Fiction] COASTAL LOVE SCENE

A dark man - in shape and texture, not color - once fell in love with a woman from other side of the world. She grew up in the pine forests of Southern Oregon, amidst nothing but the sound of the sky, the wind in the trees, and the warm lights of an imagined city, so remote.

The dark man could feel himself wrapped up in the quilt of their new home together . She had moved for him, to the North, and his great manor on the green coast. Together they ate shellfish and tasted the warm winds of tropical vacations from the pages of travel fiction. Staring into the sea at sunset, their saw their futures, floating just above their physical bodies.

Their cool, perfect marriage split off from the wet coast when he decided to follow his deployment to Denver Colorado.

Such a dry and airless place, she exclaimed, but nonetheless came along. They drove across America and lived in condo in the brand new downtown. They stayed together until the fleshy sensation of mountain drugs took the dark man too far into his own mind. He wondered into the forest and never returned. The amphetamine buzzards picked both sets of bones dry, where they lay, atop the highest mountains of Cyprus. Those parched peaks shriek jealously at the green opacity of the watery States.