Black Tide

by K.C. Jones

“I’ve always found sunsets to be rather melancholy,”

“They’re reminders that no matter what, inevitably, our day will come to an end too. No matter who we are, how we spent every hour, lived each second, eventually night will fall and that black tide will wash over every one of us just the same. And tomorrow the sands will be scrubbed clean. As if we were never here at all.”

Two souls hurtling aimlessly through the void, until by chance they collided with such force that it shook the heavens to rubble.

Seeing is believing. But the real horrors live in those places we can’t see.

And once again, here we are, ignoring his warnings. We truly don’t deserve dogs.

In real life, sometimes there are no heroes. In life, sometimes everybody loses and darkness swallows the world.

That’s the problem when your whole life—when the entirety of your species’ existence—is restricted to a single speck adrift in an insignificant corner of infinity. When something slams down from beyond the known borders of reality, how are you supposed to approach it? Stories explained the unknowable before the advent of science. What happens when science is left shrugging its shoulders?

“You spend so many years with a person, your love for them begins to feel like a solid thing. Something you can count on, something buoyant you can grab hold of and hang on to for dear life when the waters get rough. I held on to Sarah plenty of times. Now that she’s gone, I’ve just been sinking.”

You don’t have to spend years with somebody to know they can pull you up from the depths and keep you afloat through the worst storm.”