
The moon shines through a thin cloud cover casting a silver blade of light over a charcoal sea. A solid wall of fog steadily advances toward a lonely shore. A woman wonders to the edge of the beach and I watch as a subtle wind caresses the thin white dress that hangs loosely over her body. She brushes a dark curl from her pallid face and I can see the stars glitter in depths of her dark eyes like captured lanterns.
She looks like a porcelain doll tiny, fragile against the immense, dark sky. I worry that the wind will shatter her into billions of tiny pieces. I imagine picking them all up in the morning; every single little piece, until I could glue her back together, until she was not broken anymore. Her lips form a melody that floats above the black water crystallizing in the air in perfect strains of music. A voice heavy and thick like honey.
She comes every night. Venturing to stand motionlessly in the same spot, in the same white dress, to sing the same wayward tune. I used to think she was sleepwalking, drifting somewhere between dream and reality, lost among the stars. Sometimes I am tempted to run outside so I can find out for sure, but something always holds me back.
By the time the first rays of sunlight pierce the sky the woman, together with her footprints, have vanished, leaving only an unblemished sheet of white sand.