The river ran black with oil and memory.
She arrived in 1923 Dublin as a girl, but the
city had changed. The bridge was still there,
but the stones bled.
The bargain began when she found the coin in the
ash.
It was silver, cold, and etched with a face that
wasn’t hers. She pressed it into the palm of a
dying man, and he lived.
The coin demanded a trade.
Every time she used it, a year vanished from her
life. She didn’t notice at first.
By 1930, she’d built a shop on Fleet Street.
Gold coins stacked high, but her reflection aged
backward. She wore a widow’s veil, though no
husband had died.
The coin grew heavy.
It whispered in a voice she once knew.
She tried to burn it.
The fire turned to smoke, and the smoke formed a
man. He wore a uniform from the War of
Independence.
He said, “You owe more than time.”
She ran.
Through the alleys of Temple Bar, past the pubs
where the walls remembered.
The coin led her back to the bridge.
The river had risen. The stones were alive.
She stood at the edge, the coin in her hand.
The man from the fire appeared again, older now,
with a scar across his cheek.
He said, “You took my life. Now you must take
mine.”
She refused.
The river surged.
The bridge cracked.
She fell.
The coin slipped from her grip.
It landed in the water.
The river stilled.
She woke on the shore, younger, with no memory
of the shop or the man.
The coin was gone.
But the bridge remained.
And the river still ran black.
