ballad

In the tiny upstate city where we lived, no businesses were shuttered, including her and I’s. The war-boom left no empty windows. His house situated at the back of the thriving shoe shop we ran when he was away. The store front near brand new. Still some broken glass. Through the angled windows, coming back from the market, I saw them reunited. First dusk, he came to me on the couch. He held one arm around me, the other across the front of me. This hand innocently tucked in skirt’s waistband. We slept like siblings, sitting up. In his sleep, he moaned in what seemed another language. We never asked what he saw from the sea. I slipped back into dreams. Just above my knee, a worm the color of my skin, mouth like a lamprey. Or was the worm simply my skin? Mouth a quarter inch wide. I was afraid but started to pull. Round balls of skin, connected like little sausages, one after another after another after another. The strand seemed endless. Finally what I pulled out was a string of beads on fishing line. I woke again, they stood at the bedroom door. Her blue dress with wide skirt, a pinafore, covered in white polka dots. Why was she dressed like this in the middle of the night? Call me The Sailor, he said. Do you know how many times I got on that ship?

Note: point of departure: http://flashfiction.net/2010/09/friday-flash-prompt-carol-guess.php.