A dank green. Blink. The far side of the loch, bulbous and warped. Blink. A yachtsman sliding across, issuing silent commands to his crew. Blink.

The woman removes the glass from her eye. The bottom of a bottle, maybe. Perhaps the bubbled lens from a pub window, popped from between corroded lead beading. What matters is that the glass is old. The relentless grind and smash of waves has dulled the shine and made the surface rough and scarred.

There is less romance in the newer glass. Jagged edges and see-through, it is redolent of bar fights and shattered lights. There is less mystique about the modern glass. The light shines through it too readily, blinding the beachcomber.

The woman moves on, across the kelp-strewn beach and onto the bigger rubble, where flies dart around the drying seaweed and bulbous jellyfish lay dying in the morning sun. She must return to the house before long, to where the windows shine bright and to where the edges have not yet been dulled. Her pace does not quicken.

The pee-whit, pee-whit of oystercatchers’ alarm fills the air. The woman is walking past their nest and they are protecting their young. Defending their home. She walks along this stretch of beach each morning, and each morning the oystercatchers scream with alarm as she passes. Lovely, to be able to protect one’s family in such a manner.

There, in the damp sand. Pale blue glass, soft and mottled, with only the barest trace of some thick-set writing on its base. One for the top of the garden wall. The woman pockets the glass and twists her wedding ring; some sand has worked its way between gold and skin. ‘Till death do us part was right, and she has fulfilled her side of the bargain. It’s not wrong, she tells herself. It’s not wrong to wish for the most recent renderings – of bedpans and pain and of blue-veined hands gripping tight – to become scored and dull and rough. It’s not wrong to know that when she reaches into her pocket, later in the empty house, her fingers will find those mottled curves.

*Thanks for reading, folks. My recent short stories include ‘Travelling‘ and ‘Eyes Wide‘.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.