All Lost Things

Ethan Miller

Runner-up, Winnie Davis Neely Award in Fiction, 2025

All lost things belong to the Adderbridge Sea, and so, too, did the withering old man. Remnants of salt still clung to his bristled beard and stung his liver-spotted skin as he fished from the edge of his rotten tugboat. A grimy, blood-soaked bandage was wrapped around his left hand to conceal a ragged wound. For a brief moment, he glanced out over the lavender waters of the ocean that slowly consumed his lonely vessel with rust, if you could indeed call them lavender. Truthfully, the water was nearly gray, revealing its mesmerizing hue only when compared against the sky, which was covered by eternal clouds of slate. A sweet, sickly scent infected the sea, attempting to twist through the withering old man’s nostrils and sicken his stomach, his mind.

The withering old man paid no attention to these things; the Adderbridge Sea had begun its consumption of him many weeks or months ago—or perhaps it had been longer, the man mused, though he knew it wasn’t wise to let his mind linger on it. Instead, he focused on removing a wriggling fish with gleaming silver scales from his fishing rod, ripping the hook back through the wound it left behind. Weakly, the withering old man produced a knife and gutted the fish with a wet thnick before tossing its blackened innards into a rotting pile in the center of the deck. It was waist-height and twice as wide: a grotesque fountain of putridity and stink that buzzed with a hundred flies. The stench of the pile washed over the entire deck of the rusting vessel, keeping the infectious scent of the sea at bay.

Slipping his knife back into its sheath, he closed his eyes and rubbed his brow with his bandaged hand. To his near-surprise, the silver fish was still twitching in his hand. Mercifully, the man bashed the fish’s head on the tugboat’s railing with a dark, ichorous spatter, and the twitching ceased. He let out a sigh before raising the fish to his mouth and biting into its freshly opened belly. The old man’s yellowed teeth protested as he tore the flesh from its rightful owner, chewed, then swallowed. A shiver ran down his spine, and he peered closely at the fish’s scales. Each was like a tiny mirror, and the withering old man saw dozens of reflections peering back at him.

“I think I recognize you,” said the old man, his voice hoarse from disuse. “I should know your name.”

Every reflection remained silent, as did the fish.

“What is it? What’s your name?”

The withering old man held the cool, bleeding fish to his forehead and closed his eyes in thought as his listing ship bobbed lazily. A drop of dark blood dripped down the side of his nose like a tear. He focused, trying to recall a name, but the only one that came to mind wasn’t his.

The withering old man wiped the drop of blood from his face, only to find that he was in fact crying, although he couldn’t quite remember why. His appetite had vanished, and he tossed the fish aside for later. The faint speckles of sunlight that shone through the thick clouds in the sky had begun to fade. Night would fall soon, and she would come back shortly.

The tugboat groaned as if in agony, and the withering old man groaned in kind. His hands hurt from fishing, and he rubbed his knuckles absentmindedly. A cool sensation graced his fingertips, and he discovered a gold ring on his left hand. It was unadorned and loose, held on not by the shriveled meat of his finger, but by its knobby knuckle. The sea had stolen his mind, his memories, but this ring—this tarnished band of gold—the old man remembered.

A woman’s voice, like a song, washed over the rotten boat and pushed away the rot pile’s protective stench. The sea’s intoxication took effect quickly, and the withering old man stumbled to the ship’s rickety bow. Mildewed floorboards cried out under his feet as he peered over the ship’s edge at the voice’s source. A woman in a black lace nightgown floated alone in the water, her body held above the surface without effort. Her long, flowing hair had been bleached by the ocean to be far blonder than she’d been in life, but her eyes were still the deepest brown—tree trunks in the summer—the old man knew from so long ago. Her youth astonished him; she hadn’t aged a day since he’d begun looking for her, and she was still wearing the wedding ring she’d been buried with.

Please, cooed the woman in the water. Her very breath was filled with the sea itself. Stay with me this time. We can be lost together.

The old man considered her carefully as he began to weep, and the woman reached out her hand, the gleaming ring on display. Shoved through her palm was a wrought iron fishhook, a vicious barb that curled through the tender flesh and enticed the old man with promises of blood and a life once lost. An old fishing line trailed from the hook’s end and disappeared into the fathomless depths below. At the sight of the hook, the bandaged wound on his left hand throbbed with a dull, distantly remembered pain—the hook had pierced him before, although the soft brush of his fingertips against hers had almost entirely numbed him to it. The memory grew sharper, and the fog in his mind began to recede. The stink of chum returned, and he gazed at his wife in the water with sober melancholy.

“Maybe,” began the withering old man. “Maybe just one more day. I’ll see you tomorrow.” His wife smiled and nodded patiently as he backed away from the bow’s edge, his eyes resting on hers until she was out of view.

The sight of her, as always, was enough.

Ethan Miller is an English major at EIU with a specialization in writing short horror stories. Often, he writes stories based on his nightmares and fears both to soothe his personal anxieties and to disturb/delight his readers. Currently, Ethan is sticking around at EIU to finish his MA in creative writing and write his first novel.