Tormented And Restless

All nights are bad, though some worse than others.
I can’t sleep.
The seconds and minutes pass in silence.
I long for winter.
For the damp and cold and rain and wind.
Snow and sleet and frost.
The summer heat is suffocating, reminding me of that other summer twenty years ago.

Tonight, I see them;
not only Dawn, but her sister as well, both fair skinned like their mother, hair the colour of hay.
The girls hurry along the lane above the coast, sandals scraping on tarmac in the July heat.
Ahead of them lies the sea, the tide out, water still and calm.
A beautiful day.

I shift position and glance at the clock.
Two o’clock in the morning.
I’m thirsty.

Dawn never returned, only her sister.
They had quarrelled, so it appeared.
Dawn, the younger, bored and restless and cross, provoking her sister.
The sister lashing out, catching Dawn in the eye, watching in spite as Dawn tore down the path to the shore, sobbing and screaming, into unseen danger.

We never saw her again.