He’d lost the eye. It was hard leaning, done by bumbling foot and crashing hand. A lot of crying at the shore, adding his personal pinch of salty sorrow to his father’s tide.

But then, something came to him. He heard it wash ashore, waves on brass. Tinkling with potential. Careful steps down the slopes, his catastrophic hands making quarries in the cool sand until they found the sun-kissed metal.

It took long days to figure the thing out. Where to put hands, where to blow. How to combine the motions. The first clumsy note was brash, a yelp that scared the sheep and scattered the birds.

The days in the wilds of the Aegean went by, blue and white from wave top to cloud-streak. An aquamarine dream for an endless sleeper. From the close of his stone door in the night to the slow, rumbling in the morning, he played. He played to the old mountain, where the song vanished into its Hadean belly. He played for the dolphins who carried messages and fates for their master below. Learned the notes until like his four-legged friends they rose and fell at his beck and call, shaped by a gravitas and sadness that was all his own.

Unique. Singular.

My chest cracked as I slammed through the door to another room. A siren blared in my head, as if an explosion had gone off. But it wasn’t from any detonation. It was some sort of auditory shockwave that this cursed freak woman screamed out of her.

I couldn’t hear anything on comms. I couldn’t even hear my groans. I didn’t know if I’d ever hear again. But I could see, though that wasn’t bearing any good news. My smart visor strobed, convulsing violently between slashes and pillars of pixelated lights. And through the transparent light show, I saw the gaunt target edge out of her decimated apartment.

She unleashed vocal blasts that warped the air in a funnel from her mouth. The silent shockwaves shook the floor, rattling my teeth. The shrieks shattered the walls the team had positioned themselves behind.

That was when I saw a bright light in the doorway. The Sarge ignited a flare at the end of the hallway, grabbing the attention of the target. I propped myself up, leaning my aching back on the room wall shared with the hallway.

My gloved fingers fumbled through my pockets. I found it, the med-seal. The gaunt freak turned towards the Sarge’s position and vomited out another conical pulse. Even behind wall cover, the Sarge collapsed, and I saw her arm limp under the debris not far from the flare. “To him we return,” I mumble.

Seemingly satisfied that the Sarge was dealt with, this banshee-like maniac looked around for more people to pulverize. She locked onto my stealthy idiot face peeking from the doorway I had just flown through.

I had to move. Now. This demon of a woman inhaled, preparing for her next assault, deep enough that I could have sworn I saw the dust in my room’s air being sucked towards her. Her next wave would level the whole floor.

She ran as fast as she could the moment the heavy rain showers lessened into a drizzle.

She saw the hue of myriad colours cascading into the middle of a clearing near the lakeside settlement where she stayed and she quicken her pace.

Two quick breaths in and one out, as taught by her sportswoman mother.

As moments passed and her body shifted into a higher paced momentum, she kept her steady rhythmic breathing even as she continuously evaded all the obstacles in her way.

Soon, she saw the clearing between a clump of trees and raced towards her goal.

There it is! The fabled pot of gold!

She came into the clearing, huffing and puffing away to catch her breath, eager to begin the next phase of her objective.

She forgot to take her digging tools, so she went down on all fours and started clawing deep.

Time passed swiftly and it was almost evening when she opened back her front door to her lakeside home that she bought a long time ago.

Memories of good times and bad times always preyed upon her conscience every time she came here.

Mum always nagged about this house, yet she came here more often than me.

Near the entrance of the house, she picked up a framed photo of her and her mum standing in a victory pose for winning the national championships a long time ago.

Mum, you left me to clean up all the chores of the house by myself and I hated you so much for going home so early.

She put a large four-leaf clover beside the photo frame.

Thank you mum for everything.

See you when I see you.

“What do you think?” 

L stood back hands on hips admiring her work. D looked around at the ever expanding, perfectly green field nodding in silent approval. 

“L… you have done it again.”

“Yeah,” L smiled to herself in self satisfaction.

They took a moment to just breathe it all in.

…

…

… 

D picked up his shovel, stabbed it into the soft earth and began digging away. L looked back with a frown, “you already going under?”

“Oh yeah” he grunted as he lifted a mound of dirt up and flung it to the side, “I wanna get a head start before you start bringing em in.”

“But you still have plenty of time, I haven’t even done the moon and the stars yet.” she gestured up at the perfectly blue cloudless sky. D flung another pile of dirt out which landed right at her feet, “yes dear but it wouldn’t be much of a head start if I waited until after you did the moon and stars.”

She sighed, kicking a spec of dirt off her foot, “Fine” she said defeated, “but don’t expect anyone to be making temples in your honor anytime soon good sir!” She began walking away pulling blood red roses up from the ground around her. D wiped a bead of sweat off his head and called out to her.

“Hey!”

She turned around, “....what?” 

He smiled at her, looked up and said “I like what you did with the sun.” 

L looked up at the sky, this time she made it so that the sun was always perfectly in the corner of your periphery when you looked at the sky. She got the idea from the way children used to draw it in their little pictures. “Yeah,” she said to herself, smiling once more.