Friday, May 29, 2009

The Beach

He had thought her too beautiful and cheery to have anything to do with an awkward character like himself, but he was working up the courage to ask anyway when suddenly a middle aged man, squat, with a thick neck, and a dumb voice, rushed in to talk to her. He couldn’t hear any of their conversation except the end.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

This world makes no sense, he thought to himself, grabbing his backpack, paying for the meal, and saying nothing more than “thank you.”

He was always drawn to the ocean. As a child people thought he was strange because he would just sit there in an apparent trance while everyone else sought cover from the storms. But the more violent the ocean became the stronger it pulled him in. His parents thought it was the beauty of it that called to him, and he did find it beautiful, but for the same reason he found it terrifying. It was vast, unending, deep and dark and random, without purpose, without care, without love.

The wind blew in hard and cold as he sat silently watching the sun set, his blank gaze only interrupted for a moment when an old couple approached him and told him how peaceful he looked.

“The beauty is almost overwhelming isn’t it?”

He told them yes and smiled, because he didn’t want to spoil the moment for them. But what he really saw was that the only thing that made the beauty was the ugliness from which it emerged. He saw the beach, beaten smooth over billions of years, the rocks crashing and breaking each other over and over again. He saw the beautiful women jogging by and he knew their beauty arose out of millions of years of beings struggling and dying and slaughtering each other. He saw the kids play fighting. It will become real soon enough, he thought.


The sun went down, the sky went dark, and the pitch black fog came rolling in from across the ocean. He rolled up his pant legs and carried his shoes as he waded through the tide pools on the long trek across the beach. Ahead sirens cut through the night, and men in wet suits with lights attached to their head rode around on jet skis, occasionally diving under water in search of something. Probably a body, he thought, as he looked down and saw the flashing illumination of bugs dispersing at his feet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this. Especially the end.
"Probably looking for a dead body."

Sad, though.

Anonymous said...

Nice...very moody.