Monday Flash Fic: Thirty Weeks

Before I share the picture and the story it inspired I feel I should warn anybody who might read this. My flash this week is far more obscure than what I usually come up with. I did check and Brigham Vaughn assures me the story manages to stay on the right side of incomprehensible. I hope you’ll agree J

Thirty Weeks

Fifteen

The tree stump weighed a ton and got heavier in his arms with every step he took. Victor grimaced as he clamped his arms tighter around the rough wood. It didn’t help he’d further to walk every time he did this either.

Eighteen

Every tree stump he stepped on represented a week; seven full days more since the last time he’d seen Fabian.

Twenty-two

His subconscious continued counting as Victor’s memories took him back to that day, now thirty weeks ago.

“I have to go, my love. You know I don’t have a choice.” There’d been sadness in Fabian’s eyes as he spoke but also a tiny flicker of hope. “If you do what I asked you to do, if you trust me enough to fulfil my wish I promise we’ll be reunited.”

Victor had pleaded with Fabian. Much to Fabian’s shock and Victor’s embarrassment he’d fallen to his knees and begged, with tears in his eyes. Seeing his pain mirrored in Fabian’s beautiful, almost aqua-marine coloured, eyes had only made Victor feel worse. They were made for each other. He’d no doubt they belonged together and Victor knew Fabian felt the same.

“Get up. Don’t do this. This parting is hard enough as it is. We have no choice, you know that.”

Getting up from his knees had been one of the hardest things Victor had ever done in his life but he’d forced himself. “I’ll do it. I will make the path, I promise.

Please....Just tell me why?”

Fabian had shaken his head. It wasn’t the first time Victor had asked the question and the answer hadn’t changed.

“I can’t. Just have faith. Please....” Fabian’s eyes had brightened suspiciously.  “Trust me. Trust us.”

Victor had nodded his head helplessly and watched while the man he loved more than life itself walked away from him, into the sea where the waves seemed to embrace him, before Fabian disappeared.

Twenty-six

He’d built this path into the sea. A path towards the setting sun because his now lost lover had asked him to do so. He’d no idea what the purpose of this exercise was but he didn’t mind the task anymore. It gave him something to keep busy with. It marked the passing time in an otherwise empty life.

Twenty-nine

Victor stopped walking. This was as far as he’d come. He carried stump number thirty in his arms, the weight of it nearly toppling him into the sea.

Despite his aching arms Victor couldn’t bring himself to lower the last piece of wood. If nothing happened once he’d put it in place, if his life after this action were to turn out as empty as it had been the past 30 weeks he wasn’t sure how he’d gone on.

Gravity took over and it was all Victor could do to make sure the wooden stump settled in the right place. Exhausted he stayed on his knees, while staring at the sea that had claimed his love.

Out of nowhere a column of water raised up in front of Victor, obscuring the setting sun on the horizon, and rushed towards him. The wave curled at the top and crashed over him without a drop of water touching Victor. He was still staring at the sea, trying to figure out what had just happened when he heard a voice behind him.

“I told you I’d be back.”

****

566 words

More stories based on the same picture can be found in the Monday Flash Fics group on Facebook.