Loss of Separation by Conrad Williams

curl becomes a bright yellow fan. The smell of smoke as it thickens, turning into a pumping black column, is new, different to the last time. It smells synthetic today, probably because of the plastic. It works hard, this fire, a little industry of obliteration. It won't clock off until everything is gone. Fire is efficient, sometimes horribly so. As a pilot, you don't consider the awful ramifications of a crash. You prepare for an emergency. You do not prepare for your own death.
    I toed the remnants into the shingle and stood up. I did some light stretching, trying hard not to think of my new skin separating under the stress. I walked the mile or so between the pier and the harbour wall, looking at the green bite indicators of the nightfishermen hanging above the shoreline like static fireflies. By the time I reached the wall, my top was sodden, clinging unpleasantly to my back. I sat down and pulled the length of yellow string from my pocket. My fingers itched, though I wasn't sure if this was part of their recovery or in anticipation of the task ahead. I didn't practise any of the knots I'd learned, I just played with the string, allowing my fingers to produce their own configuration of bights and falls. The sea was calm, despite the frowning sky. I saw a seal's head break the surface. It watched the beach for a while and then dived down. I looked all over but I didn't see it come back up.
    I kept picking at the strands of my life, pre-crash, trying to find some reason for Tamara's departure. But there wasn't one. Not unless she was secretly disgusted by the near miss. If she was, she'd hidden it well. She stood by me all through that summer of meetings, hearings and reports. She stepped between me and the father of a young girl who had been on the flight. He spat at me, tried to punch me, his face turning black with rage as if there had been a crash and she was dead. Tamara talked me down when I was angry and talked me up when I was miserable. At night she held me and kissed me and whispered Ukrainian into my hair. Ni zhyty, ni vmeraty. So there was only the hit-and-run that could have driven a wedge between us. Every time I thought of her, the way she behaved prior to her leaving, it would not sit right with events. She had acted out of character.
    The ends of the string had disappeared. Somehow I had massaged it into a knot that contained no protrusions. It was folded and dimpled like a navel. I couldn't begin to unpick it. It was seamless. I put it in my pocket, more disturbed than I ought to have been. The fishermen were trudging off the shingle. I never saw anybody catch anything. I was about to follow them, appalled by how the beach seemed to have grown while I was resting, when I noticed a tiny figure at the far end, close to the site where I lighted my fires. I felt a moment of panic, but I knew I never left a fire unattended. I waited until whatever it was had been consumed, and then I put it out and I made sure. If it was a child, it would not be burnt.
    The child seemed very small. And naked too. It was a long way away, but although my vision had been affected by the accident, it wasn't so bad as to instil doubt. There didn't seem to be any parents nearby. I shouted at the fishermen, who were much closer, but they didn't hear me. Nor could they see, apparently, what I was seeing, despite their heads occasionally raising to gaze down the beach at the lights on the pier.
    But then the figure was gone and already I was questioning what I had seen. Naked babies did not play on the beach, not in winter at any rate. There must have been a guardian nearby who had scooted it back into a buggy. Maybe they had to change its clothes because it had soiled itself.
    I thought to go and check, but Charlie was coming down the harbour path, whistling me as if I were a dog. He asked me again if I was up for a fishing trip and this time he wouldn't take no for an answer. When I mentioned the weather, he told me it would clear up