H to O (200 words)

H to O (200 words) (10th July 2008, 12.02pm)

The liquid resembled water. The bottle had an impenetrable name. As she reached out for it, she could see the same gesture repeated, echoing through the years, on a slow-shutter speed.

Blink twice, and I’ll appear.

But the blinking had never been enough, and she’d had to resort to nudging, poking, shaking, shouting, to gain the promised response. She wondered where he used to go, slipping back inside his mind, perhaps seeing the same flickered images, another childhood played back in miniature.

Called by any other name… the smell on his breath undetectable from water. But the taste on her tongue as he proffered her the glass was bitter, sinking like quicksand into her innocence, blurring the world as she knew it. Until that point, she’d always assumed it was water.

Her mother had clearly disliked the taste. Once, she’d gone out for cigarettes. But no corner shop within a fifty mile radius had stocked the brand she liked. She hadn’t come back until years later, for the windswept funeral and the reclamation of a blood bond she’d rescinded.

She swallowed, straight from the bottle. It burned her with emptiness. H to O. The years between bitter as the liquid.