Siren's Song

by Troy Seate

About the Author: Troy is a writer who stands on the side of the literary highway and thumbs down whatever genre that comes roaring by. His storytelling spans the gulf from Horror Novel Review’s Best Short Fiction Award to Chicken Soup for the Soul books. His tales and essays may incorporate hardcore realism, fantasy, horror, or humor featuring the most quirky of characters. His longer works can be found online at Amazon and B&N.

Excerpt

During the Roaring Twenties an amusement park stood along the Pacific Ocean. Anchored by a massive pier, its rollercoaster extended partially over the water. The Depression took a share of the park’s business, but the death of two children flung from one of the coaster’s cars into the sea never to be found delivered the park’s first death knell. The Forties wielded the final blow. The park was demolished, its steel girders used in the war effort. Now, in 1950, the rollercoaster’s barnacle incrusted footers visible only at low tide and the pier are all that remain.

The beginning and ending of life is no big deal, it seems to me. The middle—that’s the hard part, the part that falls down around you. I come to this spot along the seashore on occasion, but there is no catharsis. The pull of the tide and the moonlit stretch of sand is haunting. The night itself seems to breathe as the age-old siren of the sea sings her haunting lullaby. The timbre of her voice is enchanting, a beacon to confused souls. I’ve heard her before, one of the pleasures or curses of living at the edge of the primordial deep. I think about wounds to the heart, those that will never scab over. I stare into the oblivion, both beautiful and horrifying, and think of seafarers lost at sea in pursuit of illusions. Then I think again about my dead fiancée, the maiden in the moonlight, the woman who disappeared into the abyss. I can see her running out of the surf laughing, sparkles of seawater dancing on her skin, returning from the watery grave, for she has become one of my troubling ghosts.

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