‘Our little wooden house by the sea’, short fiction

Two young women find themselves wandering a road in the desert in their nightdresses, carrying suitcases. They are content, wandering like this, having no recollection of their past; their only wish to one day find a little wooden house they can settle down in by the sea. Their contentment and oneness with their landscape is shaken, however, when they discover a car with their old belongings in it and a bleeding man who seeks their help to take him further to the middle of nowhere.

Short extract:

“When we saw the little wooden house buried deep in the trees, our hearts leapt to our mouths.

We could not speak. We were silenced by it; not choked, but so warmed in our mouths, so caressed and comforted in our mouths, that words seemed an affront.

What would it sound like if sweat, caused by all this warm, pulsing feeling in our mouths, came pouring forth from our lips? Would that suffice? Would the little house feel that this is sufficient affective communication? And what would happen if, through all this excitement, one of us would bite down a little too hard on her heart in her mouth? Momentarily halt its pulsing, hurt its feelings through this piercing of its materiality?

Are we, then, approaching the little wooden house in a way that belies the distance we’ve travelled?”