Flames

by Robbie Arnott

The folds in his face were lined with salt, cooked to a dense crust by the sun through a long day on the water, and his legs were stumping slowly up the driveway—stiff and heavy, knackered. Yet when he looked up to see her waiting behind the rails of their deck his stride lengthened, his knees lifted higher and the salt crust on his face was cracked open by a spreading, full-toothed smile. Their

And then, as I began to slide beneath the sea, the pup rested its face on my palm. Its huge wet eyes bored into mine. A puff of fish breath blew out of its nose. Something ballooned inside me, something huge and uncontainable, from the pit of my stomach to the back of my throat. As it expanded I rose up, high on the wake. And in that rising moment I held on to the seal, and kept my eyes locked on his, and waited to fall back beneath the waves. But out there in the salt, that something kept swelling. It has kept me afloat ever since.