Spring Up and Slowly Die

On gray sand, waves washed up. They came as the V shapes of migrating birds. The porous sand smoothened their peaks, so as they rolled onto shore they left a soft, irregular, undulating lip, slightly darker than the surrounding sand, then fading away.

Darker gray rocks framed the shoreline. These too grew in slopes and valleys, though each had sharp edges, forming angled faces and surrounding weathered holes. Beyond the modest shoreside parking lot, the interstate freeway, and the placid beach town grew redwood hills. The hills too formed earthy peaks, chaotic and interfering, so topological lines traced out wandering loops, with outlines that looked like tide pools. With strong swells, sea mist could carry through the town and up the foothills, following trails carved into earth. Ambling trails.

At the summit of the hills a pockmarked road drew a loop around a neighborhood of sparse, wood-shrouded houses and cabins. The road dipped and turned, unsteady, through the redwoods. Saida’s index and middle finger curled around the neck of a half-empty fifth of gin, so the bottle swung low with her arms, and the gin sloshed around the glass.

Dusk was two hours past, and the sky rained hard. Up and down. Saida felt like her cranial fluid sloshed with the gin, with the waves. Her raincoat still hung by the entrance door cabin; the rain fell hard on her shoulders like marbles. She stumbled off the road, dropping half a foot into wet, spiky thistle. A car whizzed by, metal cutting through the rain – floodlights. She stumbled back onto the road and bent her path towards its center, then towards the left. In from of her the road sloped down and to the right, into a blind turn.

Image: Wave, James Sud. 2023. Pen on Paper.