Sorrow for Youth

There’s something in the angle of her jaw, the way she looks at you, how her teeth glint like sea foam in the light of the lamps. Its 1 am and the party is dying out. You nod and she takes your hand.

A flash, based loosely on a memory, about leaving the party at 1 am, driving down empty streets with the music up load, and waiting to hear how the song of the girl beside you will end.

Read if you like: Night Drive by the Chromatics, r/TheNightFeeling/, wondering what the world looks like under the waves.

Read for free at Astrolabe as part of the Retrograde issue.

• Included in Adria Bailton’s Short Story Round-Up #100: “Even knowing where the story is going, the ride is magnificent!”

(Thanks to the Astrolabe eds: Joel Hans, Jae Towle Vieira and Astrid Liu.)