Another story of death. This one inspired by an incident from my late teens; a time when I spent much of my free time underwater, particularly off Catalina Island. This story exemplifies the classic  idea, that every story should have a beginning, middle, and end; in this case, one paragraph each. 217 words in all. Prose poetry basically.

Blues

Soaring down through the forest of kelp, weightless, buoyed by the planets liquid coat, only bubbles rupture the silence. Ten foot gorgonian fans wave to and fro in the gentle current that caresses like the fingers of a gifted woman. Yet the deeper we drift the more I sense the pitchfork laden hand of Neptune slyly ushering us through the briny depths of his kingdom. Colors are sucked from the light. Beyond thirty feet all red is ripped from the spectrum, at eighty feet orange, yellow and green are gone, giving everything the subtle blue shades of a Billie Holliday song.

Abalone, scallops and lobsters abound, but like Valkyries of the sea, the living is not our agenda. Red and blue Neon Gobies dart amongst the rocks that are scattered over the sandy bottom, their red color not really present at this depth, but added by memory of shallower times. I go deeper to investigate a swarm-like aggregation of the enchanting little fish. I watch them feed and suppress the sour bile that is attempting to rise.

The hand is pointing down, weighted by a golden ring on the forth finger, the inner rim baring an inscription now known only to me. The fish continue to feed on the stringy blue remains of the raggedly severed forearm.