I’ve been making some new friends out here. The other day someone asked if I’d be interested in joining a writing circle; after leaving behind the old Writer’s Bloc in Toronto I was happy to give it a try. It’ll be neat to have some people to bounce ideas off of, work on copy with. I can’t wait to get started.

My first assignment is to write something not more than 48 lines containing the following words:

• scoop
• pan
• harbour
• abrade
• entrance
• wend
• coalesce
• salient
• tickle
• garrulous

It doesn’t have to be any particular format. Some of us are doing prose, other poetry, but no one has a lot of rules to follow besides the enforced vocabulary.

I had fun with this. I haven’t done a challenge like this since the last flash fiction contest I entered. With the rest of the new group, I’m looking forward to more.

Without further ado:

Will The Tide Ever Come In?

I scoop another handful of fluffy white snow into the pan and watch it shrink to churning liquid on the hot, black, cast-iron.

When bubbling water drips from the skillet to the tea bag and the first scent of jasmine wends its way into my nostrils, I twitch my nose at the tickling steam and turn my eyes back to the harbour.

I wait for her still.

How long have I been standing here, eyes intent on the single vacant entrance to this lonely inlet?

How long, waiting for her to coalesce out of the fog, marked by the dancing shaft of light that twists away from the lamp-topped tower at my back?

Eschewing the company of garrulous red-nosed sailors for the relative silence of the lighthouse, I watch the desolate, ever-turning waves abrade limestone grain by grain.

It’s taking forever.

Here I wait, patient as the waves but brittle as the rocky coast, eroding in sympathy.

I wait for her still.

Shapes shift in and out of the mist, vague suggestions with no real substance.

I want nothing but her – the familiar outline of her stern face the only salient detail that I seek among the melange of grey and blue.

The tea is cold.

The horizon is invisible, an illusionary line past the obscuring murk.

If she is out there, she will see me by the light at my back and the desire in my heart.

I wait for her still.