by Thomas Wiloch

She collects mementos from the beach: a seashell, some driftwood, a bit of coral. Her room is a museum of what the ocean brings forth from within its hidden depths.

"In like fashion," she muses, "I also bring forth strange icons from within my soul to be displayed before the world." And her fingers played with the pearls of her necklace, the diamonds on her fingers, the gaudy baubles of her dangling earrings.