charlestons
Water slapped the sides of the ferry like a lover scorned. Behind him, two boys screeched with laughter, in time with the waves bursting against the hull, both bent over the screen of a cell phone. He smiled. Before him was a postcard, a coffee table book, a movie still; the white houses and cobalt roofs of Greece like paradise calling him in.
"You're selling it?"
The chipped cup, china worn smooth by fingers pressing into its blue-glazed handle, weighed in her hands like cement.
"I'm selling everything, Johanna."
"Why?"
"Because it's not mine to keep."
"And that makes it yours to sell?"
"You're selling it?"
"I'm selling everything."
The piece of chipped china, worn smooth from fingers grabbing at its handle, wearing at the blue flowers etched onto its surface, was a trinket.
"I still can't believe you're going," she said, each word embossed with "Please don't go."
The gold summer sun, wheat and honey and whiskey encased in dusky glass, glimmered in her brown eyes, each pupil a black fleck, perfectly circular.