Warmth That Once Was
by ALC Punk!

She's not sure why she's here. Oh, there are trite reasons. Explanations that left Bumpo and Dave behind in Miami. But it has less to do with them.

And more to with 20 minutes spent watching a friend get tortured. Which means it does have to do with them. But she isn't quite ready to admit that. Or think it.

The breeze feels good as it dances around her legs. Light glints off the nearby ocean.

Joan wonders if she's dressed properly for this sort of thing as the green-patterned sundress whips around her bare legs.

Stepping off the gravel and onto the beach is odd. And suddenly, her sandals feel wrong. Like she should be wearing boots because there are shards of glass and terror waiting to slice her feet to ribbons.

It's a strange delusion and she pushes it away to walk around the beach house. Past derelict boats and shifted sand.

Macabrely she wonders if the sand is still stained red in the places where his family died.

And she can see the blood pouring from the gaping wounds on Dave's face. Put there by men who were more ruthless than her last eight boyfriends combined.

It was tacky by the time they were gone--coagulating as Castle's had while she stitched him up.

"Come to gawk?"

The voice breaks through her reverie and she slowly turns and looks at the man standing by the water.

"Yes."

He blinks, then nods.

"I mean--" Joan shakes her head, tries to come up with an explanation. And fails. "I don't... I knew him."

"Mr. Castle."

"Yes. He was my neighbor, for a time."

"So. You have come to gawk."

"Yes."

They are both silent, then. Joan turns to looks at the now derelict bungalow. It's as lost as she is. No purpose now but to stay forgotten and discarded.

"How is he?"

"Alive." She's distracted by the sand blowing across the cracked boards of the deck. It slithers like snakes. Whirlwinds and eddies. She looks down to find her toes are now covered with sand. Had she really been standing here that long?

"Miss?"

How long has he been calling her name, she wonders as she touches his hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine."

"Ya sure?"

No. But her life hadn't ended on this sandy beach. And it sure as hell wasn't ending because someone else had walked out on her. She turns to the man and half-smiles. "Tell me about Castle, please?"

He tilts his head to the side, studying her. As if finding her wanting, he sighs. "Tell me, first."

So she does. As few words as possible. So she doesn't mention watching her friend get tortured, or about waiting an interminable time with a man to whom she owes nothing. Of blood, death--or nightmares where it's Castle and he's pulling threads of her skin away, peeling back the layers until she wakes up screaming.

But she doesn't tell him that.

When she's done with her recitation, he slowly nods. "He has moved on."

"You could say that." Wow. There's bitterness now. And it feels right, strangely.

"A complicated man."

"Yeah."

Silence, again, and she suddenly knows that this man can't--isn't--going to help her.

And there really is nothing to say, anyway.

"Goodbye."

He smiles. "Go with God, Joan."

It's not until later, when she's driving through marsh in Georgia that she realises.

And by then it's far too late to ask him how he knew her name.

-finis-

Back to index

© 2004 ALC Punk!.