Flash Fiction: "Fire-on-the-Water" by Tara L. Masih

I surprised my father tonight. The whole town of Monterosso, in fact.
 

We have lived by the Ligurian Sea for so long, we eat it, absorb it, breathe it. As children, we grew up with stories of how the sea saved us from Those Barbarians who were afraid of its power and would not venture down the sea cliffs. We were saved by the sea, over and over, in our history and in our bedtime stories.
 

But tonight, it turns on us. The incessant rains have pushed the water over the rivers’ banks, flooding our seaside towns. And from the other side, the rough seas rage against the protective sea walls and the pebble beaches. The siren began an hour ago. I look out from behind the shutter to see our old fishermen trying to save their lamparas, stored on the coarse shingle for the usually mild winter.
 

My mother likes to say my father’s eyes match the color of the sea because of generations spent fishing and swimming in them. When I was young, he used to take me out at night in his wooden spotlight boat. We’d row along the sea beds, the lamps torching out over the black water to find the fire-on-the-water, the green glow of luminescent plankton that draws in the “bread of the sea,” the anchovies. But I did not want to be there. I did not have the patience to sit in that glow for hours, waiting for the sea to churn to a gray froth of fish, to haul them all in with the old, knotted, spiky nets. It was long, dull, painful work, and when we pulled into the beach to meet my mother, waiting with her terracotta pots to gather them, the haul seemed paltry and meager and not worth the time.
 

Most of us in town grew up with the smell of the smoke house sheds doing their work in the backyards, and with the smell of brine and fresh fish in the house as mothers gutted and scaled and stuffed the red, inner flesh. We helped them gather the scales’ pearlessence so it could be trucked off and ground into lipstick and fake pearls and God knows what else. We watched them walk the sentiri trails along the sea cliffs to the neighboring villages to trade. And we knew we would not be making this same trek. We took our bikes and cars up the mountain and away, down the flat highways to the cities.
 

But now, I see a blue lampara disappear under a wave almost tidal in proportion, and when the wave drags back, the boat is gone. And I hear the dim cries go up from the crowd below. Muffled wails of such despair. The sea has turned on us in the past, but never like this, not with so much power and ability to take all.
 

I run out of the cliff house and down the slippery stone stairs to the main town road, cross the playground, and fight my way against the rain and wind, pushing to get to the others. It is like a wall of resistance I have to break through. The siren continues to call out. When I reach the beach, I see my friend Carlo already there, and Vanni, the son of the cheesemaker. I join in the fight to save the colorful boats that our ancestors built and mended with such respect. As the sea tries to take one from me, I groan and bleed and fight to hold on, fall on my side. Looking up, I see my father crawling against heavy currents to reach me, and I catch a shimmery gray glint of something about to overflow from his eyes.


Tara L. Masih is editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (a ForeWord Book of the Year) and author of Where the Dog Star Never Glows (a National Best Books Award finalist). Awards for her work include first place in The Ledge Magazine's fiction contest and Pushcart Prize, Best New American Vocies, and Best of the Web nominations.