"Bluegill," by Julianna Britt

“I’m dying,” she said, green eyes squinted shut from the sun. “But so are you.”

The sound of waves lapping at the dock filled the thick absence of words between us. Her crimped blonde hair was piled atop her head, framing her neck, freckled with moles, to the unforgiving light of the sun. I loved her neck. I didn’t know how to tell her. It just seemed kind of awkward, like something a bumbling guy would do on a sitcom before the laugh tracks would play.

“Everyone in the laugh tracks are dead now,” I blurted instead, forgetting whether or not it had any correlation to what we’d been talking about. I felt a tug on the end of my fishing pole, but elected to ignore it in favor of her response.

Instead, she looked at my twitching line and gave a silent nod. Sighing, I reeled it in. Somehow, the fish had stayed stuck. She took the hook and gently ran her hand along the bluegill’s back, flattening its spines. I pushed the hook up through the fish’s lip, trying not to stare at its bulbous, soulless eyes. She, however, gave each eye a kiss before tossing the fish back into the gently churning black waves.

“I envy the fish,” she said, “cheating death.”

“I’d rather only face it once,” I said, but even she saw through my irony and laughed.

“You’ve stared death in the face before. You’re cheating him even now.”

I pressed the air from my lungs, dropping my pole. The world seemed watery for a moment, reality almost breaking through like the bluegill in the water.

“I knew we didn’t make it out.”

I stared at her sun-kissed skin as it turned pale, then shiny with sweat, flashing blue and red lights reflecting in the sheen. Unnatural heat blossomed in my chest, and I took a wobbly step back. “Where are we?”

She took my hand. It was cold. Too cold. “A memory.”