Day 8 of my 2023 drabble-a-day challenge!

Please note that today’s drabble comes with a generalised content warning (suicide, murder, death). If that is something you don’t need today, please give this one a skip and we’ll see you tomorrow.

Here is today’s drabble:

Bubbles

The bubbles rose.

Delicate columns, from the base of the glass to the surface. His eyes lost focus.

Had the bubbles streamed from her mouth like that, as she slipped under? Notes written, choices made, closed eyes and the thin strand of her last breath, drifting upwards.

There had been a note, hadn't there?

Bubbles, always bubbles, rising in clouds through the green depths after she slipped.

Bubbles, thrashing through the lake as she fought, thumbs on her throat. Surely not his thumbs. She must have slipped. Perhaps there was a note.

Ah, barman, another. Yes. Thanks.

The bubbles rose.

I’ve been away this weekend, with some lovely friends. After everyone dispersed to various motorways and trains, I treated myself to a glass of prosecco in a hotel bar while I waited for my train.

The bubbles in the prosecco were much smaller than I think is usual, and I found myself fascinated by the way they constantly stream upwards. What causes the seemingly inexhaustible strings of minute beads? Yeah, I know: carbon dioxide escaping from the liquid and collecting at nucleation sites, such as irregularities in the glass. But somehow, knowing that doesn’t make the bubbles any less fascinating.