Rating: 4.75 out of 5
An artist sits on a deserted beach after dark waiting for her married lover to appear. As she waits, she thinks of her all-consuming love for this woman, remembering the first time they met and how her life changed as a result. And she chafes at the agony she feels in her lover's absence.
********
Anne Brooke's "A Woman Like the Sea" is a short but powerful piece of fiction about all-consuming, perhaps even destructive, love. It may be only four pages long, but it is undeniably romantic, with a stripped-bare emotion that tugged at my heart. Because much of the narrator's story is left untold, this story also tickled my curiosity and made me itch to fill in the gaps between the lines as the story unfolded before me.
Ms. Brooke's narrative is poetic, evocative, almost lyrical in nature. Within these brief pages, she recounts one woman's lifetime of love, hope, longing, and frustration, the destruction of her dreams, and her helpless acknowledgment of her situation. "A Woman Like the Sea" is both beautiful and poignant, and I found reading it to be a uniquely fulfilling experience.
