Fragments of Bones

Flash Fiction


The stones, like sandpaper, file away the skin of my palms and scrape my fingers by their rough texture. The sun beats down, and the rocks radiate heat like a stove where the fire was set inside before the blaze swallowed the whole house. Fragments of bones and ashes, that’s all that is left. My hands are still colored, with black.

Dark clouds move in to tinge the ether. With her ashes condensed into a small coffee canister sitting on my lap, I peer toward the ocean but can no longer see the surging billows’ blueness. I can only imagine how the waves would reflect the cloudlessness of a hot summer day.

Wings flutter above, breaking the tranquil whispering of the wind. My eyes turn toward it, expecting a seagull, but it’s a white hawk. The bird lands near me, resting with clawed yellow feet gripping into the veins of the stone. His feathers like snow sparkle. The tips of his wings blackened like a night without the moon. If I reach out, I could touch his charcoal beak as if caressing her face, my wife.

“Is it you?” I ask, contemplating the hawk’s gaze of coal, yet seeing the green of her irises.

His beak turns into her plump red lips.

“I loved you,” my voice trembles.

The bird lifts into the air, and wings flapping, he hovers above me for a few moments. Then he flies, soaring high.

I place the can in the sand between my feet and stare down on my hands. A dark residue covers them both. Gunpowder. The ballistic report said these hands pulled the trigger. Can it be true? But I’d never fired a gun. I imagine a revolver in my hands, and I watch my index finger move inward. Then I picture my wife’s head with a vermillion colored streak running down her left temple.

The makeup artist didn’t do a good job—the one hired by my sister—the hole gaped still visible near her left ear. Can I sue him for malpractice? Is that even a thing? My wife is dead, and a hefty settlement wouldn’t bring her back. It happened too long ago, anyway. The statute for that has probably run out. Time didn’t register while in the asylum, but I know they locked me away for five years.

She lay in the coffin, and I brushed my fingers over her cold, grayish hands.

“Don’t touch,” she said, her eyes still shut closed. Her lips didn’t move, but her voice cracked inside my ears as icicles, “Murderer!”

I pick up the coffee can again. They handed her to me in a fancy urn, fit for royalty, but I transferred her ashes because my wife loved coffee the most. More than she loved me. I open the canister. I can still detect the caramel scent as I examine the powdery substance and fragments of bones.

I picture her grabbing her silk robe. She covered her naked body and stood in front of him.

“Get out,” she shouted. Her voice reverberated in my tired ears, her glance, a poisonous spear, piercing between my ribcage, aiming for my heart.

I stood frozen. “This is my house,” I said, staring at her in disbelief. I worked hard to provide, and he claimed to be my friend. Why did she? My muscles tightened, my nails digging deep into my palms. How could he?

Rushing over to the nightstand, she grabbed the revolver I wasn’t aware we owned. I saw the glimmer of the black metal in her hands.

Bang! The sound erupted, and deafening darkness set in.

I stand and walk toward the waves to sprinkle her ashes on the glass sheet of the ocean. Spread it out like a blanket. Yet the gentle breeze proves too frail to scatter her remains—a frigid reminder of betrayal and guilt. But she must go. The time is now for me to live again. Each night, she had appeared, haunting me while I was locked away. No doubt for a valid reason—to torment and make me pay—but I figured she’d leave once I got out. Still, she’s here at every motel room, in every state, pointing her finger at me.

Asking, “Why?”

I can’t give her an answer. I don’t know.



First published by WOW! Women on Writing in November 2019 as a Runner Up in a flash fiction contest.