It's Still Life

Dead Men Don’t Drown

Episode 1

Two ceramic Staffordshire spaniels on my grandmother’s windowsill spent my childhood combing the sea beyond the harbour wall, their glazed eyes fixed beyond a window etched white by salt; one would think they expected the tide to bring somebody back.

The sea never stayed outside, its salt creeping into the hinges, the window frames, the hems of curtains, but it never dulled the patient glaze in those two dogs’ eyes, nor persuaded them to look anywhere else.

My grandfather, Jacob Macleod, disappeared before I was born when his trawler’s nets fouled the propeller of a passing cargo ship; the sea surrendered two deck hands to the Coast Guard, but kept Jacob for itself.

An SOS reached the shore, a magistrate’s ink called it an accident, and after twelve months my grandmother’s widowhood was folded into a neat envelope of official paper; paper has always been better at closing files than noticing what slips between them.

Nobody in the family questioned any of it, because grief has a way of salting a story if you leave it long enough.

It was only years later, standing alone in that room after my grandmother’s funeral, that I began to wonder whether those dogs had been waiting for Jacob Macleod’s return at all, or making certain he never crossed the threshold again.

Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “slip”.  Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.