Ficlets

A Gift

Arcadia Point.

I grew up here, so I guess I never really thought about them much. I mean, when you see something every day of your life it becomes sort of like a TV tuned to a game show in an old folks home.

We should be happy, I guess. The town feeds off the stream of tourists that trickle in from all over the place to see them. Without that flux of money every summer, Arcadia Point would have gone the way of so many other small, out of the way coastal towns. Boardwalks left cracking and rotted, boarded up stalls collapsing under the weight of their cheap plywood.

So really they are a gift. At least that’s what my mother always tells me. I don’t think she really believed that herself. After all, Aunt Rachel went out fishing that warm autumn day and never came back. Sometimes, when the winter winds blow in from the south, they cause a deep moan to echo across the bay, and mother looks up, tears in her eyes. I know she is thinking about her sister and the sentinels she so often proclaims a gift.

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