MARCUS STEWART shares his story, which won the The Weir’s Short Story Competition 2014
It was the anniversary of her death. That cruel date which none of us will ever know ourselves. I’d gone out for a long walk and had ended up in Victoria Park. I circled the pond, as I had done with her all those years before. Stopping for a moment, I looked into the water. Peering over the edge, I noticed something beneath the surface. It was her. A frozen image. So real. Her face just below the surface. Such pain. Eyes screaming, mouth open. All terror. All sadness. Pleading. For what? All that time, wasted. Those years, gone. Those self-absorbed years. Those words I never could say. Innumerable velleities. She stared back beneath the water. She was there all right, just under the surface. So close I could almost touch her. Say those words to her. The ones I never did. Those beseeching eyes. All terror. All sadness. I couldn’t bare them any longer. I thrust my hand into the water. Just to feel her, to be with her one last time. Her face rippled away. But she was with me there, if only for a time. The water gently carried her away across the whole pond.
