Short Fiction: Injustice

Adam sat upon one of the large, black stones on the hill overlooking the shore. The stone was flat and comfortless, but a good height for sitting, and a spectacular vantage point. He brushed the soles of his bare feet across the fine layer of sand that covered the stone below. Small waves rushed against the beach in peaceful rhythm; a cool breeze swept in across the rocks: the ocean and the wind were speaking. Vast and still, the sea spread out before him like an endless jewel: in parts a translucent sapphire; in parts a dark, fathomless emerald. Upon the water’s surface, a shimmering path stretched to the horizon, where red-streaked clouds slowed almost to a halt, warming themselves by the setting sun. Adam was oblivious to it all.

This is the worst day of my life, he thought, staring at his unresponsive phone screen. Why would anyone even want to come to this God-forsaken place? The deity he worshiped was apparently a mobile Internet connection. He shoved the phone in his pocket, crossed his arms and sighed under the immense weight of his suffering. He watched his mother and father walking hand-in-hand down by the water. My parents are such Nazis. “Nazi” was a subjective term in his family: to Adam it meant anyone who denied him permission to go into town to watch an R-rated movie with his friends; to Adam’s great-uncle it meant the soldiers who killed his fiancé and then starved him almost to death in a prison camp. Demonstrating the human spirit’s defiant endurance, Adam survived that day at the beach, and learned nothing in the process.

© 2018 MILES VENISON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED