Wave wash, wind in the seagrass. Here at Spindrift, it was the song of the silver flowers, whose remaining two blossoms masked an emptiness more colossal than if there’d been none left at all. I stumbled back up the path. The main block looked utterly abandoned. I couldn’t imagine life inside at all. Maybe I’d extinguished the last flicker. I couldn’t bear the thought. I broke into a run. Peripherally I noticed that the mosaic around the entrance was still intact, a whole wall of thick glass tiles and clay squares fired to glimmering rainbow bronze in the morning sun. I pushed open the door. “Vivian?” Nothing but wind-song silence. What made me think I had the power to drive away a dedicated nutcase from his work, I didn’t know, but I’d been fairly toxic to my fellow man of late. I thought about what I’d called him, and I felt sick. I’d had no right. Now he was gone, another soul passed beyond my ability to beg forgiveness, and… No.
