The Deepest Water

Alex is nineteen, and she is fine. Fine is a skill, and she has it.

She dropped out of Ferris State after a year and moved back home. She works the register at a café on South Division and takes the bus everywhere, which happens to keep her off the river bridges. She hasn’t dreamed in years. There is one day from when she was ten that she can’t remember at all.

This fall the nightmares come back.

On the anniversary of that day she loses her bus pass and has to walk home across the Blue Bridge. Halfway over, the city goes silent and empty around her, and her memories go quiet with it. Her body meets it with relief.

That night she sleeps without dreaming. A crow keeps watching her. The empty city wants her back, and next time it has more than silence to offer.