Constructive suggestions:

1. You’re not going to like this, but I feel like it should be written in the present tense. The contrast between ‘now’ and ‘then’ would more effectively convey your motifs of remembrance and loss.

2. It’s hard to get a good sense of character because this is an excerpt. But the swearing shattered him/her for me. Why would he/she maintain such an articulate, insightful inner monologue and resort to the f-bomb so readily when speaking? Again, this seems like well thought-out prose so I suspect I’m just missing some background on the character. I have to add that you don’t need it – the cursing. It’s become so ubiquitous that it no longer packs any punch. Unless there is a good reason why they would swear (characters of Burroughs and Frey come to mind) there are more powerful ways to show strong emotion for those who are capable of them. You clearly are, so the swearing seems flimsy.

3. Mind cliches that don’t sound like cliches. For example, ‘ Plumb its depths’, ‘wee hours of morn’. We’ve heard these before. Can we have something more interesting to read? I really like the original devices in this piece – “as a serpent twining through the beach sand’ , ‘ Their bodies left behind to dwell beneath the earth, keeping watch over the land they had trodden on’. When readers see a group of words they’ve seen before they’ll understand what you’re trying to say, but they are not enjoyable or memorable like the rest of your piece and tend to detract.

There are also a few errors with tense and subject-verb agreement – “in that ground lies bones,” for example – but I don’t think that’s the kind of feedback you’re looking for.

Keep going, you’ve got natural talent in my book.

Cheers:)

“Her eyes followed mine as Lou slowly, silently drove past the wreckage, her face bruised, and an ugly gash across her left cheek” that part was a little confusing because it sounds like Lou is the one with the bruised face when you’re referring to the injured woman

“grimace, but her.” i would just drop the but her part man

“Lou’s car. I looked at Lou, and watched his face sorrowfully harden, then with wailing protest from our car,” in that part you call the car both lou’s and both of yours, i would change it to either our car or lou’s car both times you talk about it

and one thing i noticed that doesnt really detract from the excerpt either way was that in the beginning you state exactly what thoughts the characters are thinking and what they’re feeling, thats perfectly cool but i think the second half is stronger when you let the characters actions and dialogue demonstrate to the audience the emotions they’re feeling and what they’re thinking instead of laying it right out for us. if i were you i would work on adding more of that in the first part because i thought it was really good.