Stories In The Sand
By Nic Smith
She said she read Shakespeare so he laughed and ran away. He had no time for dead poets or stale love and stuffy hearts. Seizing the day wasn’t cliched to the unburdened. No captain but himself, no anchor to his soul.
But the weight came down and the storm rose up and he lost sight of land. The horizon lost its luster and he found himself returning again. Not to her, of course, but to the places she used to own. Her absence sharpened the reverie, accelerated the descent. Twenty thousand leagues, the bottom still out of sight.
He touched down at last and laid down in the dark, pressure pulsing all around. The flash of a lifetime ago, a child braving the deep end. Nothing remained of the youthful joy of rocketing back toward the breath of air, and he knew suddenly growing old meant losing grip on self-preservation. Fish out of water, refusing to flop.
He washed up eventually, but found the land unsteady. He felt the stagger in his steps and heard the stares as he passed. He lost himself in words, convinced there was something to find. He sought clarity through confusion and called it discovery. Deception was always strongest from within.
He traced spirals in the sand, the cool kiss of water the only salve he knew. The sun fell into the sea, and he felt the familiar tug to follow. But, as always, he heard her words in the crashing of the waves:
You can’t get it back.
Again.
And again.
You can’t get it back.