It's Still Life

Dead Men Don’t Drown

Episode #2

Three months ago this cottage still listened to my grandmother; now it belongs to me, though at times it feels like arriving halfway through a conversation she started with the walls some eighty years ago.

I’ve learnt the house wakes early, long before I’ve slept enough, but I manage one charity-shop box before the drip of memory becomes unbearable: the blue willow plate Gran used for seed cake, the chipped mug she claimed was lucky because it survived me at seven, the biscuit tin still smelling faintly of old brass buttons, the living-room curtains still stinking of the old coal fire.

The freezer proves kinder than sleep because there is nothing sentimental about peas with frostbite, except beneath a bag of mixed veg I find a ziplock bag heavy with loose coins, one expired credit card, a man’s gold wedding band with the morning sun caught like fire in its curve, and a piece of paper folded into a spiral lock.

There is also a tub of pistachio ice cream, which feels less like providence and more like instruction.

So I sit at the kitchen table eating it straight from the carton with a serving spoon, the frozen ache of it knocking impolitely against the roof of my mouth, while the ring lies beside my elbow bright as a dare.

After ten minutes of pretending not to, I slide Jacob Macleod’s wedding band onto my middle finger …

and it fits.

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