This little snippet of flash fiction was an entry into a competition, and I came up with it thinking back to a time as a child, playing in the surf while on the annual family holiday, when I lost my gold signet ring in the water. I remember the panic, that my mother would kill me...and I spent hours searching for it. But it was lost forever. Would have been nice to have found it though!


Found

She stared at it for a long time.

The sun reflected from the water, brightened the rock pool. And there it was, gleaming, unsullied by the years.

She remembered what happened. It was this beach. A day brightened by a hot sun and shadowed by intermittent clouds. She remembered the sea lapping around her ankles, remembered leaning back to warm her face. The fizzing water swirled around her hands and she moved, felt the strange tickle on her finger.

She looked down.

It was gone. Swept away by the surf, or swallowed by the sand. She remembered how her stomach rolled, the sickness swirling faster than the waves buffeting her. She desperately sifted through the sand and pebbles, but it was gone.

She sat in the water and cried for a long time.

The memory evaporated. Ellie bent down and plucked it from the pool.

“What you got there?”

She turned to her husband.

He frowned. “Why are you crying?”

She held up the ring. It was a gold signet ring with the letters EH engraved onto the surface. The one he’d bought her just before they were married. The one she’d lost in the surf, 30 years ago.