Thursday: Writing

I came to the edge of the sand and sat down next to him.

He turned to me. "What are you doing here?"

I said, "My internet's down." He nodded understandingly. "It just sucks," I said, suddenly overcome, "It just sucks cause I was going to watch a show on the internet."

"I've been sitting here for years without internet," he said. "Maybe it's okay. I mean, look, you're writing."

He was right, but I said, "Well, what about you? You've just been sitting here for years without the internet, what have you been doing?"

"Nothing."

"Obviously."

I looked at him. It had been a long time since I'd looked at him. I took a real good look. I pretended I was a camera and refrained from blinking until my eyes turned into salt.

"I mean, what are you doing here anyway?" I asked.

"I don't know. You're the one who knows."

"I do?"

"Yup."

I flicked at some sand with my finger. The tide was coming in, it was crawling up my toes. Soon, if I didn't move, it would swallow me and carry me away into the ocean.

"What's out there anyway?"

"I don't know." He thought. "The unknown, I suppose."

"Look, I'm gonna take acid soon, I thought you should know." I really did think he ought to know, just in case...well, just in case this was the time I finally decided to walk away from myself, forever, and never come back. Just in case the acid made me irretrievably crazy.

"You have to let me go," he said, "You can't go tripping through the desert on a horse with no name with your head like this."

"Like what?"

"This!" He gestured all around him. The beach was white and bright, what I imagined a beach on the east coast to look like even though I had never been to the east coast. There was a road, very far away, but I only knew that because I'd heard a car with music pass by earlier. "You made this, you should know."

I was hurt. "But I don't know. I don't know anything." I threw sand into the water. It was an altogether useless gesture.

"You have to let me go, Liz," he said, putting a hand on my arm to show me it was important. It was. The tears came to my eyes and I drew my knees to my chest.

"I don't want to let you go."

"Oh Lizzy," he said and pulled me close to him. I wept openly. I felt the tide licking at my toes. After a while he said, "The tide is coming in."

I looked into his eyes, I wiped my sleeve across my face and sniffed.

I said, "I have to go."

"All right then. Maybe tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, but not likely."

"Whenever you're ready. It's no big deal."

"I think the internet is working now," I said. I actually had no way of knowing.

But he just said, "All right then. Enjoy your show."

Writing Feb 25 2009