Three Sentence Ficathon

I’m sorry, he says first, and after that he says, I’m John, and then, helplessly, What the hell am I going to call you?

She would answer him, but the winds are wrong, the waters dead, and everything she can say is gone; the name she had was too big for this body’s flesh tongue and bone teeth, too slow and many-voiced, and all those voices, he ate.

She copies his mouth sounds instead, John and hell, and he laughs until water leaks from his eyes; she touches it, lifts her awkward fingers to her lips, and tastes enough of the ocean in his salt that she cannot hate him more than she loves him still – but whatever small babbling collection of syllables he decides to give her, it won’t be a gift she keeps.