Waiting for Aquarius (Short Story)

By Courtney Herz

Sophia is staying at Recovery Home, a seaside therapy center, where she's trying to heal from a tortured past. But soon the shoreline becomes home to more than healing. The past converges with the present, and reality and imagination soon become indistinguishable. This short story is packed with magical realism, ethereal imagery, and seductive prose, and poses important and personal questions along the way. If you like thought-provoking, subtle fantasy, this short story is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Courtney Herz
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516351404

Book preview

Waiting for Aquarius

She's always alone that way. The way you see her now. Standing on the edge of the ocean, just out of the way of any real danger. Lora tells me she stands there like that hoping for the worst. Hoping the sea will swallow her whole. Perhaps she'll be standing there on a certain day when all the world caves in; when the ocean decides to take back its own and drown us all. She'll be first in line for the show. Maybe she will be. If it happens.

I've always wondered about her. I walk out to the beach at midnight and see her there. How can I blame her? I'm doing the same thing. I sit down, fanning my skirt like an umbrella, and she doesn't know that I'm watching. I don’t think anyone exists in her world except for her; she is the only inhabitant. The dreamers are like that—living in worlds so similar, but so far apart that they never know the other one exists. That's how I feel now, sitting on driftwood, staring across at her. I wish she knew that I was here, and that we are not so different from one another.

The tide comes in, and I feel the cold dampness strike my toes with precision, striking nerves that make the rest of my body go numb with shock. Funny how even the things we expect can shock us. I think sometimes that the expected collisions in life are the ones that shake us up the most. We over-prepare and under-expect. When the unexpected