Adrift! A little boat adrift! And night is coming down!

[ACT 11 The moth] Audrey finds herself holding a knife beside a lifeless body, flees from the scene, and encounters a mysterious figure.

This week the last episode of the Moth for this month. As I’ll be abroad teaching, the next posts will be about that. Happy reading.

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Audrey's heart races as she wakes up to the familiar sound of crashing waves and the taste of salt on her lips. The dawn paints the sky with hues of brown, yellow, white, and green, but her mind is consumed with a  red. Gripping the serrated knife in her hands, her gaze falls upon the lifeless body of Rasje, lying at her feet. The stab wounds form an intricate pattern, like sunlight through foliage.

"Oh gods," Audrey whispers, trembling. A man with grey hair, thin as a wire, his eyes still blinking against the morning light, rushes up to Audrey, eyes widening in horror at the sight. "What have you done?" he says.

Audrey's hands tremble as she tries to speak, but her words catch in her throat. The man’s words cut through the haze of Audrey's mind, “The police’ll be here any minute”

"I can't stay here," Audrey whispers, her voice barely audible over the crashing waves. "I have to go."

 "Wait for the cops," the man urges, his voice gentle but firm. "You need to explain what happened."

Ignoring his pleas, Audrey breaks free and flees along the beach. Her bare feet pound against the cool, damp sand. The morning sun casts long shadows across the shoreline. In the distance a gannet crashes into the waters of the Atlantic ocean.

At first the image of Rasje's lifeless looms in her mind like a huge clud, but running there is a sense of liberation, a feeling of freedom that comes with each step she takes further away from the scene of the crime. She runs even faster, desperate to outrun the guilt.

As she continues to run along the beach, the adrenaline begins to wane. A bone-deep weariness rises into her muscles like a heavy anchor dragging her down. 

In the distance, the silhouette of a boat looms against the horizon, its sleek lines cut through the water with graceful ease. With each passing moment, her pace slows, her steps becoming more labored as she struggles to keep her feet moving.

Tears blur her vision as she collapses to her knees and there, amidst the chaos of her mind, Audrey sees him.

The man from the hospital, now adorned in a captain's uniform, stands before her, his presence both comforting and unsettling. "You," she gasps, her voice barely a whisper as she stares at him in disbelief.

The man regards her with a knowing look, his eyes filled with a mixture of understanding and sorrow. "Audrey," he says softly. "You've come."