bonfire skeleton
She looked among the charred wet remains. The blackened circle surrounded by damp sand. Green glass, melted, deformed, twisted into abstraction lay buried in part under the ash. She saw no smoke but she smelled the memory of it. Her fingers ran through her hair and grains of sand fell free, their landing a whisper. She shivered slightly and put her hands in the belly pocket of her hoodie. Her hair fell in front of her eyes but she didn't bother brushing it aside. About 10 feet away slept a boy. Or maybe he was just passed out. Half his face was covered in sand and his mouth was open. She could hear him breathe but tried instead to hear the sea.
The sky above her loomed low. She felt she could touch it. It brightened though there seemed no source for the brightness through the cloud. It sucked the colour from all around her. The sea lapped and looked of slate. It seemed a dead dawn.
A half-empty bottle of port sat in the sand a few feet from the scorched patch. She sat down next to it and peered down its neck, judging the remains. A small sip, to see how it sat. A deeper sip. It was sweet and hot in her mouth. It burned a little as it went down. She gasped and her eyes watered. She laughed at herself. Composed again, she looked out to the slate sea and the smattering of rocks that peaked through the high water, studying the ripples as they spread out from the stones.
A half-burned plank lay next to her feet and she picked it up and threw it into the pile of ash. Another sip. She felt a drop of rain and then another. She looked up, as though she needed to know from whence it came. It was a light drizzle, and it made a light hiss as it hit the water. She looked towards the sleeping boy and the rain did not move him.
Another sip and she stood and brushed in vain at the sand, trying to dislodge it. The rain fell harder.
She looked again towards the sea and stared and drained the last of the port.
Then she turned around and walked away, leaving the scorched sand and the sleeping boy alone in the rain.