Blue Seas

Katie sat down on the sofa and frowned unhappily at the side stitch marks on her thighs made by her skin-tight jeans. She poured a little bit of Japanese Cherry Blossom body lotion in her cupped palm and began rubbing them onto her legs.  Paula turned her head to look behind her and then continued to stare down the balcony. Yesterday, in a fit to get into the holiday spirit, the girls had strung little fairy lights along the balcony railings. They were gleaming red and yellow and blue and orange and green in an alternating fashion now. Paula sighed. Alexa looked up from the floor where she was sitting and cleaning out her DSLR lenses.  "What's wrong Paulie?" she asked good-naturedly. "Nothing." said Paula absentmindedly, still staring out from the balcony which overlooked a street below. It was empty. "OOH YE-AH..." Music blasted in from the kitchen where Sandrine was cooking. She stuck her head out from the kitchen door, 'I'm making a...

The stove goes click-click-burn under Juanita's fingers as she turns on the electric fire. A frying pan is placed on the stove.  Out comes the cutting board.  Outside, the clouds began to gather and rumble. Juanita pays no attention to it. She slams the vegetables on the cutting board and looks for the knife.  The knife is nowhere to be found.  She tucks a loose curl behind her ear and instead pours a cap full of oil into the pan, followed by a pinch of cumin. The oil starts to hiss and the cumin starts to pop. Juanita steps back a little. The spicy, acrid smell of cumin and heat from the angry, hissing oil combined with the humidity from the cloud-covered sky infused another throb to her already paining forehead. Juanita turns to hunt for the knife again.  This time she finds it, in the same place she had looked minutes ago. She begins to dice the beans and carrots in quick, alternating hand movements, her knife smacking the wooden cutting board, mak...

"Hush! Don't cry..." The mother clasped the child to her body. Whatever little space remained between them was closed. The child buried his face in the mother's neck and howled. His tears smothered, drowned over the mother's reassuring words of kindness. The pangs of hunger. The sense of disappointment. The feeling of unhappiness and failure and grief that was seeping into it, through its skin. The child couldn't take it any more. A fresh wave of tears washed over him. He was lying on the floor. Curled up in a foetal position. Crying. The mother came, tried to embrace the defeated being. Crooned soft, calming words. The child's body shook. The mother stroked his head and murmured, "Don't cry." The child sobbed loudly in reply. The mother sighed and said with finality, "Don't cry. For there is no end to this grief."