Yeah. Much more reasonable.

Half is my second stop, then ABE and alibris, then powells. Then ebay. By then I've figured out if it's the one I read when I was eleven or just the one I could never find, and do I reeeeeally want it enough to give it sparse shelf space. If so, and if I can find it at ebay I mark it and sit on it till 3 minutes before the end of the auction, and then I post my max bid and cross my fingers.

I'm a cheap old biddy when I'm buying. But when it's imaginary money I'm proflilgate.

You know, you don't usually talk about hunters height -- so much as what weight they are up to carrying-- a horse that is up to carrying 200 lbs is going to be different than one that you'd use to carry 130 lbs.

I hope no one minds. A new short story. I'm not sure what to call it. Any and all comments, suggestions, etc. etc. appreciated. ***

She starts shakily, as usual, too early, too little sleep, too many drinks the night before. Not enough smokes in the world, she thinks as she grinds the last butt into the tarry road, shaking her heel as she grinds, trying to kill something, or drive it into the earth. "All the way to hell, Mama," she mutters as she lights the next, eyes narrowed. "All the way to hell." She takes a deep drag and looks around, tries to focus her eyes on the extra-physical presence of the place.

Monday afternoon quiet, the air, storm-thick, presses her toward the ground, urges her to join the earth, the dune and grass and dead things. She leans against her car, pretty red thing, too expensive and not worth the money. But, she thinks as she strokes it lightly, work-roughened fingers gliding over satin paint, worth it to me, a symbol of freedom, a thorn in Mama's ass.

Another deep breath, deep from the sternum, centering her, here, ass warmed by the car, faint wind kissing the backs of her arms, rippling the hairs on the front, teasing the undersides of her breasts through the fabric of her t-shirt, making the ragged strands of her faded denim shorts skip-touch against her thighs, before passing on to rattle the dry grasses beyond; water and sand darker where they meet, where the ocean strokes herself against the sand, water paling to sky the color of water, water the color of sky, dunes only a little paler, a little less blue, rippling away from the water, shading into dun, spattered with black where bits of sea wrack lie, caught on the ridges and dips and on into white where the grasses stand and rattle in the wind up to oozing black pavement, where she stands against the car, ass warmed. She breathes out and her shoulders drop. She's here. She drops the cigarette and grinds it out, almost gently.

She locks the car carefully, pockets the keys, makes her way to the water's edge, slipping her shoes off before checking her watch, counting the seconds under her breath as they tick, tick, tick, set for Greenwich Mean, perfectly timed, and then she steps. Water, sand, foot, air. And again. And again. This is the 97th day. If it doesn't work this time, she will go back to her tiny, weather-blasted "vacation" trailer, fusty rug and the smell of dead fish, mark off the day on the calendar with a big black X, and then she'll try again tomorrow. One day it will work and she'll keep trying until it does or the divorce money runs out.

She steps as lightly as possible, breathing in with each lift of right foot, breathing out with each lift of left, feeling the sand suck away, the lick of the ocean against the arch of her foot. And step. And breathe with the wind, feel it blow through as well as around, feel it lick her ribcage, tickle her heart and lungs. Breathe with the movement of the surf, feel it turn, turn, and stop, right there, the moment, the cusp, the edge of time and space; ocean, air and land; that moment when the tide turns, feel it. And suddenly she's dropped, through the crust of earth and water, driven into turquoise depths like a lightning bolt slammed down by Zeus's mighty hand.

She can't breathe, but it doesn't seem to matter. The water is light; swirling around her in dizzying ribbons of varied turquoise and gold shading to white. She doesn't know if there is such a thing as up anymore. She thrashes because she can't breathe, even though it doesn't matter, and she wants it, whatever this is. She can't seem to stop her body from its spasms, the knee-jerk reaction to an overwhelming force. I'd fight God like this, she thinks, if I ever have the chance to meet him. It makes her want to cry that she can't just accept the gift, afraid she'll be puked back up on the shore. She doesn't cry, or maybe she does, but it doesn't matter because she's thrashing in one big tear, a bubble, and then she thinks she can breathe, just as she realizes that it's dark on the other side of the skin, and cold, and there are things there, waiting.

She surfaces at different times.

"I told you, Nigel, she's too young to hear that shit. Go peddle it somewhere else." It was the whiny voice that brought her back. The sound of loving childhood. She snorts, even when she's here-not-here, that voice sucks broken glass.

"Mona, stop. She's a baby. I know she's a baby. You think I don't know that?" The rasp and drag of cigarette, smell of smoke, the comfort of Uncle Nige, warm lap, warm, long, strong arms around her middle. A shoulder to lean against. She snuggles in deep and goes back to where she was.

Forgets until too late it's where the things are. Comes back again like breath after a dive into the community swimming pool when she was 12.

"Tell you, baby girl, you got the tits and ass of a grown woman already." A voice like smoke and whisky, the smell of skin the day after. Always the day after. "You're going to be a fine woman when you're grown."

"I've told you Nigel. You stop. You just stop. She doesn't need that shit and she don't want it. You go on now, get out of here. Don't come back. I mean it."

Driven away, she drops back again, into the depths, but only awhile, and then she's drawn back to the dark.

"I only need a little cash until payday Nige. That's all. You always said I could count on you when I need, well, here it is. No milk, no bread, no gas in the car. Just until Friday." Mama always had flexible morals.

"Ten do you? Or, no, here," the ripple rasp of money from a flatfold, "take twenty. You don't mind if I spend the night on the couch here, do you? Just tonight. Too tired to head all the way home."

"Oh, sure, no problem, Nige. But you don't be telling our girl those stories anymore, hear?"

"I hear."

And into the depths, and then back to the dark…

He speaks in a whisper so Mama doesn't hear. "If you walk the shore, they say, at just the moment when the tide turns, and everything else is just right, when sea and land take over the sky and break the balance, then you can go somewheres else, somewheres new, or old, maybe older than this."

"Tell me more?" She snuggles in close to the warmth and the dark and the feel of strength, the smell of the day after and old cigarettes.

She can feel him smile by the set of his shoulders, the movement against her back. He whispers. "You gotta be a woman, only women can go, don't know what's there, no one comes back, but a girlfriend of mine said she'd do it someday, and she disappeared after that. I think she did it."

The snap of a lighter, light, gold against the dark, the smell of new burning, acrid. "What happens?"

She hears his harsh intake of breath, feel a movement that means fingers to tongue to remove a wisp of tobacco, an old movement. Feels the smile as she sees old ivory teeth flash in the dark. "It's all about the balance. Women have balance a man don't got. So, a woman who wants to go there, wherever or whatever it is, she just has to match her balance to the balance of the sea, the sky, the land, and when it wobbles, take advantage. A man can't do that."

She sighs and drops her head back on his shoulder.

"It's all about taking advantage."

I won't go back, she decides. I won't go back.

And then it's done. She disappears, the bubble's gone no turquoise now or gold; everything's just black.

All the little hairs on the back of my neck and my arms just stood up to attention. Damn, Deena.

Deena, that was gorgeous.

Two things, both mechanical:

she thinks to herself

She can't think to anyone but herself. "to herself" is redundant; too much information, and not needed. "she thinks" is fine without the tail.

denim shorts skip touch against her thighs, before passing on to rattle the dry grasses beyond; water and sand darker where they touch

Use of the word "touch" twice, very close together. Also - skip touch?

I'm guessing that's good, Beverly. I like the reaction anyway. Makes me feel evil.

Deb, thank you. I dropped the "to herself" and changed the second touch to meet. I was trying to describe that feeling on the skin when you're wearing ragged denim shorts with strands that move against your skin with the wind... skip touch seemed to work in my head, mostly for the rhythm/feel in my mouth. Would skip-touch be better?

Yup - the hyphen was what I thought you meant. But I couldn't be certain there wasn't a word you'd wanted in there that had got left out.

It's an extremely powerful piece, it is.

Thanks, Deb. It feels good.