B) Part 2

On the shore, a splinter of flesh finally worked free, lay, far from
the branches of humanity. The sucking edges of the wound drew back, the
taste of its blood seeped into his flotsam mind drying in the curious
air

Still. The grittyness under his cheek was firm, still. Thirst. Thirst
filled him like salt fills the sea. Pain. Pain was the rocks. He rolled
over, spewed up a last probing finger. Gulls wove a basket of sound. He
tried to open his eyes. Dry as a deserted shell. Tried again. GLARE. He
retreated back into the dark of his lids. The vastness of his
sensations swamped by the sudden space.

Thirst. Thirst. Thirst. He had to move, to live, or shrivel like
seaweed. Blindly he reached out a hand, felt something smooth, damp,
ran his finger down it, met a snap. He sobbed, opened his eyes in a
squint. It was. Was

his love. The long wrist broken, the veins of her strings cut,
spiralling into endless silence, the silken curve of her palm's cup
he'd rested so often on his knee as she poured out the gift of music
smashed by a jealous stone.

He had thought there was no more water in him, but from his deepest
hurt came tears. This guitar had been his heart's voice. She was the
only part of him that spoke the truth. Without her, he was a lie,
unreal, invented by those around him

But there was no one here save the gulls. And his thirst was real, if
nothing else. He couldn't bear to look at the mangled remains of his
longest companion. She was dead, he could not fix her. So. He would be
silent as a stone also.

Why had he left his homeland? He staggered onto one knee, shells and
pebbles digging into all points of contact with the beach. Seaweed
slithered under his palm. A pure white gull standing a few yards away,
appraising him with an arctic eye, leapt back. Ha! He wasn't carrion
yet. Something tickled his finger. He strained to focus on a tiny pink
crab, searching, pathetically hopeful for its watery roof. He watched
it a few seconds, then, grunting with the effort, picked it up between
finger and thumb, and crawled to a nearby rockpool, dropped it in. It
floated down like a feather. He felt absurdly happy, light headed,
then

nothing. The gull hopped closer

***

The sand was rough as a callous, but her steps left blisters. Though
she tried to avoid the last laggardly streamlets hurrying after the
main body of water, her feet soon got wet through her thin shoes.

She felt half foolish, half scared. The scrying had been so clear, yet
she had never known a stranger come to the island. The only people
she'd ever seen were her parents and brothers. She didn't know why
she'd not told them. Maybe because, if she did, it would not be
true.

She wanted to pray that the man would be alive, but it seemed blasphemy
when she didn't even know if he existed. And to pray he existed, only
to find him dead...this must be how the waves felt, never able to rest,
be sure of anything but wanting

She wondered who waves pray to? The moon of course. And gulls would be
their angels! And fish? What were fish?

There was something over there! The wrong colours for rocks, long
enough to be a man

She ran, the bottle of water in her bag sloshing. When she reached him,
for a second she didn't know what to do. He was lying face down beside
a pool, as if he were Narcissus, and had not liked what he'd seen