fjörugler

Dashing out of the house for an appointment in the city, she grabs a milky white piece of sea glass off the shelf and thrusts it deep into a pocket. She keeps a finger curled around it as she strides to the station. On the train, she places it on her tongue. It is still salty. The roundness of it is awkward in her mouth. When her attention wanders, it scrapes again her teeth. She tries to hold it steady as she exits the train on the other side and heads up the street to the hotel bar. The salt has worn off it by the time she pushes through the doors. Seated in a leather-covered chair, she balances the piece glass, oblate, the size of a thrush's egg, and pours a berry-flavored cocktail past it. Over the course of the evening she nearly forgets how the glass feels in her mouth. It is warm now and tastes almost like the rest of what her tongue finds on the hindside of her teeth. Paying, pushing back out through the doors, she sucks on the white glass quite unconsciously, only distantly registering a mineral flavor. On the train again, somewhere between here and there, she remembers the glass and presses it against her palate, traces around the shape of it with the tip of her tongue. She reaches home and shuts the door behind herself, takes the glass from her mouth with thumb and forefinger, and places it on the nightstand before climbing into bed to sleep.