She appears at dawn, heels clattering on the dock, and scans the horizon for the silhouette of the fishing boats against the rising sun. Wearing A.'s favourite dress, she waits, ignoring the whistles and the gazes, the comments about how tight her blouse is, how short her skirt, a skirt stiff with embroidered leaves of acanthus, intertwined with vines and wild roses.

Each day she waits, clung to her post like a shell to its rock, long after all the fishing boats have moored, long after they've all warned her it's far too late. Because hope belongs to the optimists, to the naive, and to the gods.

___

SLAWKA G. SCARSO is a copywriter, translator, and lecturer. She has published flash and micros in Fractured Lit, Ellipsis Zine, FlashBack Fiction, Ghost Parachute and others. Her debut novella in flash “All Their Favourite Stories” was commended in the 2022 Bath Novella in Flash Award and is available from Ad Hoc Fiction. She lives between Rome and Milan with her husband and her dog, Tessa. More words on Twitter as @nanopausa and www.nanopausa.com