FebulousFebruary 2025: Lost and Found

Air to spare

I’m up in the sky high above the world as we know it and I’m coming to bury you brother.

Only nine hours ago she padded the beach hut floor towards me, every creak weighing heavy with the news of you.

Half drunk half sleep wholly partied out with friends and now. Now I’m sucked right back to the core of us and all that we came from.Raw on raw.

The kindness of her look the warmth of her hand on my back held my silent screaming denial. She folded me in to a loving hug as a cold white sliver of morning pierced my heart. A wailing, injured animal bellowed from my pit as friends concerned spluttered and spilled from their huts.

Suspended within hollow headphones and knees locked in economy class I can feel the regular breath of a stranger snoring beside me.

I am drifting through air, so much air, air to spare, and I try, try really hard to will life in to you in your few final moments.

When your world exploded inside your head did you know this was dying?  Did you see red? Did you feel you could fight it? Did you think of me and that we’d missed our chance? Did your thoughts come flooding? Did you feel yourself drowning? Or were you swimming in a sea of bloody confusion?

I’m up in the sky high above the world as we know it and I’m coming to bury you brother.

Fiona Thomson, Margate