With a handful of moss, I dove into the murky water. I sank, and felt the fluid twist around my arms, stomach, and thighs, dragging me down. I now belonged to her.

Soon I wouldn't be able to see, as the light fled upwards, away from that which it knew would follow.

My hands hit a contradiction, sand: hard and soft. Saliva leaked from my mouth at the thought of what lay beneath. I too was hard where once I was soft. With fear! With anticipation! I was consumed with something they have yet to name. Something like lust after disinfection. A sin so pure, I felt like God yearning for a universe yet to be imagined.

They said if I took moss from the place where the sun melts skin, I would set such things in motion. And the agony was beautiful, as I scrambled up the rock to the pinnacle of that cliff. As flesh dripped off my bones, I picked up a handful of green relief. It soothed the raw exposed tendons of my hand, and I dove.

And now, something stirred within me, a soul I had previously been unable to recognize. Now it gleamed. I watched it glow beneath my skin. I felt it press outwards, like a baby waiting to be born. It was reaching out for a new world.

It breathed the light which I used to see her clearly. The word mermaid would cast illusions in your mind. You would not imagine this beast with any accuracy. Her skin, a texture you've never felt, both revolting and enchanting. Upon the sight, I gagged. Something you could call a finger traced the ridges of my throat. I nearly came.

But we had just begun.

I held out the moss, and as she took it in her mouth it disappeared from view. Then she took me in her mouth, and view disappeared from me. Black didn't return to me then, though. I saw and didn't see. I simply did not have the capacity for more than the sense of touch. I felt the moss pressed against the flesh of her cheeks, and the gentle sting of pointed teeth. I felt it on the smallest scale. I was gliding between molecules, with the algae and the things they consume and excrete, dancing with the chemical composition of her spit and that which she had eaten last.

I felt. Not in the approximate way you are used to feeling, but truly, wholly. Everything.

As she eased, my soul could be seen in front me then. It pulled itself away from me. I was becoming a mother to myself. The skin thin and taught, stretched many feet toward her. Horrifying, and yet, only natural in that moment. A tongue slid from her wide, grotesque mouth and slithered across that threshold of tender flesh which kept my essence from drifting away entirely. I shivered with glee.

Something, like legs, or a tail, or some combination of the two, split then, not with ease, but with a bloody tear. I was beckoned closer, and embraced, pressed against the thick film coating her rough skin. They wrapped around my hips, and where her mouth connected my body with the world, her loins dragged me out of it entirely. Her lips pressed to mine and we became an auroborus.

Her blood wafted through the ripples we made in the water, sliding into my nostrils and mouth. It tasted like an ancient rust. I saw far above us, ships sailing across oceans, and impaled on the rocks. I saw fish torn apart by dolphins, and dolphins torn apart by time. I saw the water turn to acid and back to water and then to air. I saw myself turn to carbon. I saw it all, in fast forward and then in reverse. I saw the decomposition of time, and then I watched its reconstruction. When I found my body again, I wasn't sure if all the time had passed, like a finite resource, or if none had been used at all.

With the movement of the universe, I felt her muscles stretch, and compress around me. In her motion, I felt entropy and the return to order. Her hips slid around me, both entirely chaotic, and precisely calculated. I felt myself being brought like a tourist through every part of her body, through every part of every thing. I felt myself slide into place among the rest of her, and I understood this was where I fit among it all.

How long it continued would be an irrelevant question. We were divorced from time. It only was until it wasn't. Until I felt her body grip me with a strength that must have shattered many of my bones. Until she quivered with a force liable to send tsunamis to distant lands. And I was ready to join her, until I felt a competing desire.

Somewhere within me.

Somewhere deep and quiet, a small worm of a thought, wiggling to the top,

A speck I could have missed but didn't.

BREATHE

It said

I NEED TO BREATHE.

I was leaking out of myself: blood, bone, spit, feces. Everything that was over inside, now swam around me. She had let me into the sea and the sea into me. I was deconstructed. I was a cloud of suffering and ecstacy, and yet there was a last sensation which danced around the edges of my experience, waiting to make its entrance. The sensation of death. I had been ready for it all, I had lusted for it, to be torn from my personhood and laid out. But, I was not so prepared to lose my being.

I did not need need to be a person, or an animal, or anything recognizeable. But to not be anything. To not be aware of not being? To surrender myself to becoming a flash in the play she would show the one who came next? I yearned to swim upwards.

I convulsed, and flicked and twitched what was left of a body. I twisted and pushed and pulled. But there was nothing left to move, there were no pieces left under my control. There were no pieces left to control. I was a pile of what had once been. I was nothing. It occurred to me then, that I have not been anything for a very long time.

For in that long passed moment, death had obeyed, and receded. It no longer even remembers who I was, for it only concerns itself with the living. I am no such thing. I am not even sand for there is no longer sand. I am what has been left behind after it all passed by. I was shown everything, and invited to join in the chorus. I refused, and now the song has ended.

I am. But that is all I am. And that is all there is, is that I am.

“'He had more money than God and more secrets than the devil,’ were some of the words chosen by state prosecutor Jim Horrisey this morning when asked for comment on the arrest of suspected killer, and racketeer Mason Dame. Known for his public persona as a philanthropist and art collector in some of the most elite circles on the east coast, Dame has been apprehended for the alleged murder of five people, alongside the orchestration of several dozen more killings. The result of a several year investigation carried out by the FBI, these charges are paired with hundreds more encapsulating a wide range of illegal activities from money laundering, to drug smuggling.

Here with us outside the courthouse, we are joined by independent investigative journalist, Harry Milson, who is one of the nation’s foremost reporters on organized crime. Mr. Milson, you have criticized the recent arrest on the basis of concerns for public safety, do you wish to expound on these concerns for listeners?

‘Yes, thank-you, Ms. Kelcy. For those of us observing the ponds in which Mr. Dame has been swimming for the last decade, these developments are of little surprise, as I am sure they are for many listeners at home. In the court of public opinion, it has been known that Mr. Dame, if not sat directly at the head of the table, has been heavily involved in running one the largest criminal organizations this nation has ever seen. The pile of bodies atop which his throne sits, is surely much larger than just those reported on by authorities, and his resources may even rival that of the state which intends to prosecute him. They have a battle on their hands, even with the amount of evidence they have managed to accumulate.’’

‘Why then, do you criticize the move to take this dangerous man into custody? Is it not in the public’s interest to have him off the streets?’

‘My concerns lie in the nature of those that Mr. Dame buried beneath our beloved concrete jungle. Among the dead are criminals, gangsters, and those who stalk one another in the undergrowth of this city. Even if he is not the head of the Simion family in title, his absence as de facto leader will undoubtedly create a power vacuum, which will likely be filled with a replacement that has significantly less regard for remaining within those bounds.’

‘So you are concerned about what will come of these nefarious organizations in Mr. Dame’s absence?’

‘Yes, undoubtedly. More so, I am concerned that Mr. Dame’s respect for those boundaries will degrade. I am worried about the hell this man will bring with him back onto our streets when he is undoubtedly released. He just does not play by the same rules as our justice system. I have met Mason on several occasions over the years, and I do not hyperbolize when I state that he is certainly more demon than man. The DOJ does not have the ability to contain the disaster they have now set in motion.’”

The radio seemed to trail off, as more and more people entered the bar, "Another hard work day completed for the masses,” a man muttered to himself as he downed the last of his drink.

“Ever thought of getting a job yourself, Adam?” The bartender responded.

“Another whiskey please, Wilson,” Adam said, “double. Now that you mention it, my savings are running a bit low.”

“No wonder, you spend more than my weekly pay here on a daily basis.”

“I just love your company,” Adam glanced at the radio, and slammed back the golden liquid a moment after the bartender set it down on the bar, “Seems I am in luck, I recently heard about an open position.”

—------------

Later, in a dark smoke filled room at the top of a tower in Manhattan, a dozen men in suits sat around a boardroom table and screamed down one another’s throats. It was here that battles were truly fought. Those that perished on doorsteps, and at the wheel of their cars were not casualties of battle, but the cleanup that happened afterwards.

“He must have told you something!” one of them hurled his words at the head of the table.

“Silence,” a large man with an adornment of golden rings and a shiny bald head shot back to the room. A moment after his command was obeyed, he proceeded with his thought, “Mason didn’t tell me anything. We have no leverage. All of our strategy, all of our black-mail, everything we have on this city resides in his head, and his head alone.”

“We’re so fucked,” one of the suits muttered.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” The bald man said, “we all know he won’t remain behind bars for long. We just need to stay afloat until such a time comes as he can sit next to me once again. We might have lost everything, but those in this room are the only ones that know this to be true. More immediate is the need to find the rat that led to his arrest. That same disgusting creature risks leaking that which only we know.”

At this, a composed man in a tailcoat strode towards the door, and locked it, before removing a bottle of wine from the nearby bar. He began to fill the glasses of those at the table, before taking his place behind the right shoulder of the head, who continued, “we will remain here until we discover a plan for sniffing out our rat.”

The following hour was filled with baseless theories, and finger pointing. The men discussed subordinates, outsiders, and enemies, but ultimately the only motif that repeatedly appeared was the undeniable fact that only someone sat in that room would have the information to inform on Mr. Dame. Eventually, this devolved into the twelve men standing around that mahogany table, pointing weapons at one another. The one at the head remained seated, tapping his finger on the wood in worry, the servant behind him, as still as a statue. The yelling had returned.

Then, suddenly one of the men collapsed onto the table. The suit across from him fired off a shot, startled by the sudden movement, embedding a bullet in the adjacent wall. All guns turned to the one that fired.

“Why did you shoot him?” the bald man demanded.

“I didn’t!” The shooter stammered, “I fired after he collapsed. I swear. Check.”

One of the other men pushed the body to the side, which slid off its chair onto the floor, “he’s telling the truth. He’s dead, but the bullet missed.”

“May I speak?” The servant now asked the head of the table.

“Do you have something to do with this?”

“Oh yes,” Adam replied, “I poisoned his wine. It took a little longer to work than I expected, I must admit.”

All guns once again shifted focus.

“Permission to explain, sir? Before you all fire?”

“Very well,” The big man said.

“Mr. Brims there,” Adam said, pointing to the dead man as he shed the tailcoat, “is your rat. I have exterminated him for you. In exchange for a favour of course.”

“What proof do you have? He was my son-in-law for God’s sake.”

“I’m so glad you asked. Look under your seat.”

All those standing around the table leaned in to get a closer look, as the boss removed two objects that were taped to the bottom of his seat. One was a beige envelope, the other was an IED, “what is this?” he demanded.

“The proof. Inside that envelope resides a set of photos of your deceased colleague meeting with FBI investigators, timestamped across the last three years. The other thing, well, let's just call that insurance. I will disarm it remotely after I have left your lovely offices.”

The big man slid his hand in the envelope and removed a set of photographs. He quickly slid them back inside. Alongside these, he also removed a smaller, thick white envelope, “very well. What favour did you have in mind?”

“I heard you have an open position within your organization.”

“You are referring to Mr. Dame, I presume?”

“I am.”

“I am afraid not just anyone can fill that position. Do you have any idea what Mason Dame did for us here?”

“Oh, Mr. Simion, I am not just anyone. Please open the other envelope you found.”

Once again, the sound of baited breath and tearing paper filled the room, Don Simion’s hand reached into the envelope and removed a thin black book, a passport. He opened it and gasped.

“What is it?” one of the men breached the conversation. Mr. Simion threw it on the table for everyone to see. It contained a photo of Mason Dame, but with an alternative name.

“Who the fuck is Samuel Dryfus?” One of the men voiced.

“I believe he was your advisor, Mr. Simion.” Adam said, a smirk brightening his face.

“Sir, this is authentic,” one of the men said, holding the passport in his hand.

“How do you have this?” The Don inquired.

“Before he was your advisor, Samuel, or as you know him, Mason, was my apprentice, among other things. He actually got this job through my referral.”

The bald man’s face froze. The memory of a nearly forgotten phone call passed through his mind. The words that were uttered to him on that distant night still brought fear to his eyes even now. The voice on the other end reverberated through his mind, the same voice as he now heard from this stranger.

Adam, seeing the recognition in the man’s face continued, “of course, if I were to die here today, all of those things we talked about would be released by a confidant of mine. Even if there was a man willing to die alongside me, would he be willing to tarnish that beautiful legacy of his, I wonder?”

“Very well. Tell us what to do.”

—-----------------------------------------

Counter to the prediction of journalists across the country, the period following Mr. Dame’s arrest was beyond peaceful for the general public. Months passed, and bodies accumulated, without a single civilian caught in the crossfire. Eventually, the sheer monopoly that the Simion family possessed removed the need for violent crime almost entirely.

Meanwhile, in a jail cell, Mason Dame seethed. It wasn’t due to the state of his case of course. That was going exactly as expected. Jurors went missing, judges bought fancy new cars. He spent his months sitting quietly, listening to the tales of those newly booked. Listening had always been his talent. He had expected bloodshed, and instead heard of peace. He expected everything to fall apart in his absence. Had his ego made him believe that his invisible throne held more power than it had? In that case, he resolved, the entire kingdom would need to burn down.

One Tuesday, a lawyer approached the bars, and the door opened. It began shortly after. First foot soldiers, and then their commanders, bodies once again began to fall. Eventually, security be damned, another meeting was held in that smoky boardroom. The same characters in a far different arrangement. Mason pushed the large doors open with a trail of corpses in his wake. Sat around the table were thirteen chairs, each housing the remnants of a man. A clean hole in each one of their skulls.

Mason grit his teeth, another thing stolen, he thought.

“It seems we’re both out of a job,” a voice spoke out from behind him.

“Adam.”

“Samuel.”

A smile crept across Samuel’s face, “I am going to contact HR.”

Adam kicked one of the dead in the hallway, splattering blood across the wall, “I think you’ve killed HR.”

“Then I’ll need to speak to the CEO.”

Adam smiled too, then, “which one of us would that be.”

At that, their guns raised into a kiss, the two barrels pressed to one another, “I could be,” Samuel said.

Adam lowered his gun, and looked around, “you could be. It would be relaxing, I'm sure, to be a leader of none.” His eyes locked with Samuel’s, “or perhaps, now that I've tied all loose ends, you could return to being a lover of one.”

“Is that what this is?”

“You said it was work that was the problem.”

“You said it was work, actually. You were ready for retirement,” Samuel rebuked.

“Aren’t you, now?”

“You’ve given me little choice.”

“Isn’t that how we’ve always played.”

“And you think you’ve won? Do you know why I wasn’t ready to give it up?”

“Because you loved the carnage more than you loved me,” Adam trailed off.

“Incorrect. Because I wasn’t yet your equal. That’s no way to build a healthy relationship, Adam.”

“And here, I’ve stolen the chance for it from you, how ironic.”

“You think so?” Samuel reached into his pocket, and removed a cellphone. He dialed a few numbers and put it to his ear, “yes, please come up now.” A few moments later the elevator ding went off, and the doors opened. Adam looked over his shoulder and watched two familiar figures looking at him from within.

“Mr. Horrisey, “ Adam said, addressing the state prosecutor, “and Wilson. Nice to see you both. In Sam’s pocket the whole time, I see.”

The lawyer, and the bartender simply smiled in return, as Adam returned his attention to an old love.

“As you said, now that I’ve removed all loose ends, perhaps retirement is in order,” Samuel grinned.

“Not quite all.” At that, two shots went off, as Samuel, and Adam fired into the elevator, and two men fell dead, “you played me.”

“Absolutely.”

They would go on to kiss one another there, the dead at their feet simply a reminder of what brought them back together. They would go on to find a more conventional ambience for future dates. Even so, many years later, on a fridge in a humble bungalow in upstate New York, a polaroid picture is taped. It depicts two men smiling, one of them throwing up bunny ears behind the head of their prop, a corpse in the shape of a large bald mob boss. A Halloween party from many years ago, they would say.

It didn’t suit him well to grieve, and he knew that much. Anger fit better, like a well tailored suit, opposed to the ill fitting, rented black blazer he now wore. As he stood there watching the casket lower into the ground, he was unable to feel any grief for his deceased lover. The people around him kept using words like, “stolen,” but the ones that drifted across John’s mind were all synonyms for “fled.”

Seriously, he couldn’t help but think, a little bit of cancer? Was it so easy to leave me behind? A few colonizing cells drifting around in your spine? The disease seems to be the

only evidence you had one at all.

As he got home, and opened the door to what was their apartment, it wasn’t despair he felt in response to the loneliness that emanated from the empty space, but rage. John wished he had a gun, he wished he had someone to fire it at. But the subject of his wrath had already escaped his grasp. A final cowardly act. Not only did he deny John the ability to continue loving him, he denied John the ability to enact revenge upon

him for running outside the bounds of his love.

As he paced around the rooms, his mind played back all the memories formed in their corners. Dinner at that table, laughing on that couch, loving on that bed. It was as he paced that he began to formulate an idea. John did not have a gun, but he did have someone to fire at. He walked to their balcony, and stepped out. He put his hands on the railing, and gazed down at the street below. He watched the ant sized people walking along it, and was suddenly thankful that Jacob had convinced him that the twenty-fourth floor, “wasn’t tooooo high up.” He clambered over the railing, and without taking a moment to think, flung himself towards the pavement.

First: darkness.

Then: light.

Finally: some third thing.

“Hello,” Jacob called out.

“Hello,” he heard his own voice call back to him.

“Echo,” he called out again, but there was no immediate reply. John tried to look around him, simultaneously understanding his surroundings entirely, and seeing nothing at all.

Eventually a response arose from the strange place, if it could be described as such, “that is not my name.” It was John’s voice still.

“What is?”

“I am called by many names. You would know me as God.”

“I see. Why do you speak with my voice?”

“You hearing your own voice when I speak says everything about you, and nothing about me,” it replied.

“Where is Jacob?”

“Heaven.”

“Bring me to him.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

“You killed yourself. Your parents brought you to church as a child. You know as well as I do as that is a prohibited action.”

“That shit is actually true?”

“For you it is. Because you believed it to be true when you did it, and you did it anyway.”

“So what?”

“So you are to be sent to the underworld: eternal suffering, torture, etcetera.”

“But Jacob got to go to heaven?”

“Yes.”

An idea began to rise up through the chaos in John’s head. His concerned expression transformed into a satisfied grin, “were you watching what he did in the tenth grade?”

“Enlighten me.”

John spent the next few hours (not that either of them could identify the passage of time) explaining everything that Jacob had done wrong in his life, from cheating on his seventh grade girlfriend with a boy, to stealing from a liquor store in college. It impressed the god precisely how much John remembered of Jacob’s life.

“Very well,” the deity spoke, “I will bring him down to join you.”

With this, John’s smirk transformed into a wide grin. He had done it. He had enacted his revenge. Now Jacob will suffer for what he has done.

There was a flash, or perhaps the lights vanished, or some concurrent mixture of the two. Suddenly, the only thing that stood out as concrete among this place of incongruence was the face of Jacob. It smiled gently as he walked towards his love.

Somewhere and nowhere, the god smiled too, for nothing had changed. Of course, none of the “sins” described actually applied to Jacob, as he lived his life an atheist. You must know this is how such things work. Rules only apply when you allow them. In the end John had still been sent to hell where he belonged, and Jacob remained in paradise. As you can see, death is full of these contradictions.

As their hands intertwined.

As they walked through the fiery gates of eternity.

First, every lit window in the city pulsed like the strobelights of the world's greatest rave. Second, they flickered like fireflies over the lake. Third, they ceased to be visible at all. A second passed, and with sight gone only the other senses remained:

The sound of a loud indifferent crack, followed by a distant thud.

The smell of gunpowder, and metal.

The feeling of air rushing into the lungs of the bystander as he gasped.

"Why do that?" he asked through a breath.

"It's my job," another voice ambled through the dark, alongside the rough slap of metal and plastic on concrete.

"Not that. Not what you did, but when you did it. You fired after the lights went out."

"And so I did, " the sound of rummaging, canvas and a zipper. The crinkling of clothes.

" Why waste a shot?"

" There was no waste."

" How could you know?"

"I know."

"How though? How could you track him in the dark? Does that scope have night vision?"

The sound of dress shoes snapping against the ground, louder with each step. The cold breeze of something moving quickly next to one's face. The sensation of something cold pressed against the eye socket of the bystander.

"Do you see anything?" The voice no longer ambled. Now it marched.

" No," the bystander confessed. It felt like a confession.

"No night vision, then."

"Then how?"

"Why do you care to know?"

"It was beautiful."

"I am going to kill you for what you saw."

"I know."

"You still wish to know?"

"I do."

Then, the sound of rubbing cotton, and diminishing footsteps. A sigh, and a grunt, "that's a good start."

The bystander sat too, "you sound old."

"I am old."

"Before, seeing your hood, and your posture, I wouldn't have guessed it."

"I was not so old in those moments. In all others, I am."

"What did you mean that it is a good start? What is? Wishing to know?"

"Yes, for that is how it was done. I too wished to know. I wanted to know him."

"The dead man."

"There is no such thing as a dead man, only a corpse. I wished to know the living one, the one who ceases to exist. I wanted to know everything about him. His favourite cereal. What makes him nervous as he drives to work. The thing he liked to look at most through the window in his office. The reason he preferred his secretary to his wife. Everything."

"I see."

"It was cinnamon toast crunch, by the way. Though, he would have told you it was raisin bran. Cyclists when they didn't have appropriate reflective gear. The newspaper stand down the street. And the way she smelled like his mother."

"You almost sound like you love him"

"I almost did. I almost didn't almost."

"You killed someone you loved?"

"Of course. It's a prerequisite. I always love those I kill. I wouldn't be able to kill them otherwise."

"I see."

"Are you beginning to understand?"

"So you watched him?"

"For a very long time."

"You knew him."

"I knew him beyond the past and the present. I knew him into the future. I could tell you where he would be standing now if he still lived."

"Then that's how you did it. You didn't need to see where he would be."

"In that moment I didn't need any senses at all."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?" the older man said, his voice followed by a cough and a grumble.

"How do you find your job?"

"I love it, too, most of the time. It is only painful in very short bursts."

"Like now?"

"Like now."

"Have you been doing it long?"

"Exceptionally."

"is it dangerous?"

"How so?"

"You must work with criminals, gangsters, killers, that sort."

"Yes."

"How many of them are as old as you?"

"None."

"How many are close?"

"Also none."

"What is your secret for survival?"

"I don't know."

"I think I do."

Another loud bang, followed by a much closer thud than the previous one. The whirring of fans on the rooftop of a skyscraper. The restoration of power. The return of vision.

The bystander stood with his arm outstretched, his hand wrapped around the grip of a handgun. The old man lay on the concrete next to the ledge, and a case holding a sniper rifle. The blood looked clinical rather than dramatic in the roof's harsh light. It spilled from the old killer's abdomen.

"I've enjoyed getting to know you, Michael," the bystander said, his eyes wet, "do you understand now? Your unfortunate technique."

"Yes, I see now," the old man whispered, more to the ground than his companion.

The bystander knelt down next to his face and cradled it in his hands.

They whispered in unison, then, "to never have been loved."

The lights vanished once more, as clouds rolled overhead. A crack that could have been mistaken for thunder leapt out into the night.

As we feed the pile of crows their breakfast of greed,

And toss them our watches, and earrings, and wedding bands,

That wretched dog looms,

Uncared for – a pile of sticks and tongue,

Wrapped in a blanket more mold than fur,

Eyes both wide – the size of desperation,

And empty, resident hope long since departed.

It doesn’t stalk so much as amble, and trip,

And fall, and rise and shake and collapse once again,

Like a tattered rug, plastering our shadows.

A throat of shredded rope, unable to carry a sound.

Though we remember how those chords rang once, when we were young.

A beautiful howl from a beautiful thing,

With a coat of gold, and a hand on its head,

Until then we grew to avoid it,

Until then we grew further to step over it without mind.

It will lick water from your hand, still.

I tried it, fearing a bite I trembled there,

Before the ragged pants of an old friend,

But it only bowed for me.

Still it bowed and drank.

On nights like this,

I wonder why I smoke

I wonder if after inhalation,

What would happen,

Should I not exhale at all.

What would I feel then?

Would I lament it?

Would I weep?

Would it be bittersweet?

I think I would say, "oh well."

I think I would fold up my dreams,

And place them next to me, all neat,

And think,

"It was a nice thought,

It was a nice thing to want,

It was a beautiful fantasy, at least."

I think that could be enough, for me.

That would be enough.

It has all been enough.

I haven't turned out the way I thought.

But that's okay, it never really does.

And it's my fault,

The way things ended up.

I walked here, I am walking there.

It's my feet, they're my legs.

I have nothing for which to complain.

My bed is warm for now,

Some day it will be cold.

That's all there is to it, I suppose.

There's me, then there isn't.

There is a future, then in a sudden,

There is only present,

And finally, nothing.

It's funny how suggestible I really am.

If I was out drunk with a small crowd,

In this car, on the highway,

I would be invincible.

But instead, I am alone,

And missing you,

And so every turn in the road becomes,

A near death experience.

From complete immunity,

To complete fragility,

In the same moment across,

Two universes.

I am everything at once.

Have you been to the desert?

Where it isn't sand, but dust,

Where the ground -- it moves, it lives,

Like water,

Like the current,

Like it doesn't know where to settle.

And where my boots smack hard against the packed clay.

And they scrape a layer off the top,

And upheave what little had planted itself in that place,

And force it, too, into the wind,

And to places unknown.

And there, you'll find me.

The dust. Yeah. I think. If anything else...

The littered bones, too.

The absent flesh,

The only evidence of life, anywhere.

The shadow of a coyote,

The wake of a vulture.

The negative space:

The best portrait of myself nature could paint.

Two friends drank coffee by a campfire. One had eyes that absorbed the light, the other, eyes that made it look dull in comparison.

"I'm worried," the one with bright eyes said.

"About?"

"Forgetting."

"Forgetting what?"

"Who I am."

"You're with you all the time, how could you forget."

"I'm not really."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm with you all the time. The more I'm with you, the less I feel I'm with myself."

"I see."

"Do you ever worry about forgetting? Now that I'm here."

"No. Not really."

"How?"

"I don't feel as if I have anything to forget yet. I'm still looking for it."

"You have been alone a long time."

"I think that might have been the problem."

Silence enveloped them.

"Do you think I'll forget?" The friend with eyes of glass broke it.

"No, I don't."

"How can you be sure?"

"I can't quite explain it yet."

"Can you try?"

"I can but I won't."

"That's not very helpful."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I trust you."

Silence.

"Do you remember being a child?" The one with eyes the color of grief asked.

"I thought you weren't going to explain."

"Just a bit. Do you want me to stop?"

"I remember bits and pieces."

"So you've forgotten already."

"I don't think so."

"Explain."

"It's like a ship. Losing some pieces doesn't sink it."

"Don't bring Theseus into this."

"It is like that though."

"Not really."

"Well, I think it is."

"You aren't a ship, my friend. You are a ship builder. You worry if I help you build it, the ship won't be yours anymore, and maybe it won't. Maybe it will be ours. But there is a difference."

"A difference?"

"Yeah, between a life and a person. The ship is your life, but the one who makes it, that's you."

"That's us."

"If you want help."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe we can build a nicer ship if we work together. A prettier life."

"I don't expect it to be pretty."

"But it will be grand."

"It will certainly be different."

"Good. I want it to be different."

Two friends walked along the rocky coast. One had eyes that mirrored the white sun shining overhead, and was known by the name The Moth, despite being a human boy. The other had eyes as dark as the depths of the sea, and was known by no name.

"It's so wide open," The Moth said, "nothing is telling me how far I'm allowed to see."

"Do you enjoy that?" His friend asked.

"I do. Don't you?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"It feels like freedom."

"Freedom isn't something you feel, or something you're in. it's something you do."

"It can also be something that just is."

"Explain."

"You're free. As long as we've been traveling you've just been free. It's something innate about you."

"Very little is innate about me, Moth. I am what I choose to be. You chose to be free alongside me, that you must know by now."

"I suppose I've never thought about it that way. I still like the view."

"It just makes me feel exposed. I feel vulnerable."

"And you dislike that?"

"I'd say I do."

"Because you fear it?"

"I guess so."

"You know what?”

"What?"

"Fear isn't something that just is, it's something you do."

The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked. The Moth’s jeans, too long and already shredded at the hem, tore a little further with each step. He became so enraptured with the view of the waves lapping at the horizon, he jumped when his friend spoke.

“That place has seen better days.”

“Huh?” Moth mouthed before he looked over, and absorbed what he was seeing. On top of a hill overlooking the sea was a house. It was wooden, and in tatters. A small sailboat sat in its shadow on the rocks in-front of them, “oh wow. Do you think anyone still lives there?”

“It feels unlikely,” the dark eyed friend replied, “but there’s only one way to find out.”

They didn’t need to wait long, however, as a third voice soon came hollering from above, “Hey! Stop there.”

The two boys slowed but didn’t stop. They looked up to see a man standing in the doorway of the house. He looked to be in his early fifties, with a light jacket on, and thin wire framed glasses to match his equally wiry physique.

“Hi,” the black eyed friend called out, “we’re travelers. This is my companion Moth.”

“Do you have any weapons?” The man asked.

“Yes,” the friend answered, pulling his long coat aside to reveal a large knife fastened to his belt.

“Will you remove it?”

“No, I’m afraid I won’t.”

The man furrowed his brow at this, and adjusted his glasses, “come up then,” he called down, “I don’t want to yell anymore.”

The friends scrambled up the rocks to meet him at the front of the house. When they arrived, they found him to be shorter than he initially appeared, both of them loomed over him despite their own modest statures. He looked tired up close. His eyes drooped behind their lenses, and his mouth turned down at the edges, pulled by time into a permanent frown, “I’m sorry traveler. It was naive of me to ask you to remove your knife. It must be a dangerous world out there.”

“It was,” The dark eyed man replied, “it was also naive of you not to insist.”

The man laughed at this, “I suppose there was no winning, the damage is done now. Would you two like to come inside? I don’t have much to offer with respect to food unless you enjoy clams, but I can fix us some tea. It has been quite some time since I’ve talked to anyone but myself, I would love to hear your stories.”

“And us yours,” The Moth replied.

The man ushered them into the house. The inside looked somewhat more put together. The walls were still nearing the end of their life, but there was a lit wood stove, and a rug with some rocking chairs and other furniture scattered around. “Cozy,” Moth commented as the two friends sat down, not bothering to wait for their host.

“Rest your feet, I’ll heat up some water for the tea,” the man grabbed a pot that hung on the wall, and slipped outside briefly. They watched through the window as he filled the pot from a water pump out front before returning to place it atop the stove. He sat across from them on a stool as a cool breeze cut through the house.

“Do either of you smoke?” The man asked as he removed a pipe and tobacco from his pocket, packing the latter in the former. The Moth vigorously shook his head, while his friend hesitated for a moment before waving the idea away with his hand. “Suit yourselves,” the man shrugged as he struck a match and took a few puffs, the warm scent filling the air, “so what brings you all the way out here?”

“Moth here wanted to walk along the coast. He likes the sea, and the misty air.”

“What a wonderfully trivial reason to go somewhere. Or in our case, nowhere.”

“We are almost always nowhere,” The friend with black eyes replied.

“If nothing is around, why are you living out here all alone?” The Moth asked.

The man scratched his chin, “at first it was a trivial matter as well, I was born here. Well, not in this house, but nearby. There used to be a village not far from here.”

“Used to be?” The Moth wondered aloud.

“Yes, it’s all gone now, except perhaps for some planks of wood. I haven’t walked that way in a long time. My village sustained itself by fishing from the bay here. I’m a fisherman myself. But some twenty years ago, the nets started coming back empty. A pack of whales had decided to make the bay their hunting ground, you see. Without the fish, the village couldn't survive, so they packed up and moved to somewhere with more abundant waters, or so one would presume.” he paused to puff on his pipe, “I have no idea if they ever actually made it.”

“But you stayed?” Moth asked.

The water began to boil then. The fisherman set his pipe down, stood, and walked over to a cabinet on the wall opposite the stove. He pulled out three mugs and a box of tea. “What kind of tea would you like? I have green, and black.”

“Do you mind?” the friend with dark eyes asked as he reached into his backpack, and pulled out a small tin, opening it to reveal a pile of teabags, “this tea is my favorite. It’s from my hometown.”

“And where is that?” The man asked, taking the bags from him, and pouring the water.

“It’s like here.”

The man chuckled, “nowhere, then. Ever cautious.” He handed the friends their mugs of tea, and resumed sitting. “Yes, I stayed. This is because of the second, less trivial reason for my being here, if you boys would humor my telling the story. There was a girl from my village named Anne who went to my school, if you could call it that. Together we comprised twenty percent of the class size. I’m not sure either of us ever learned much there, we were always too busy laughing, and drawing on our desks. From the first day we were inseparable. Later we grew into something other than friends. I don’t know if it was just a symptom of the small size of our village, or some wonderful stroke of luck that we found such love within one another. We would come down to the sea and fail to skip rocks across the choppy water. We truly felt like nobody else in the world could understand us. We felt like two people had never known each other like we knew each other. We married after finishing school, or perhaps we finished school to marry, I can’t quite remember now. I like to tell myself I chose to fish so I could be close to the sea, and those memories, but in reality there probably just wasn’t much else to do."

The travelers sipped their tea prematurely as he continued, most of the flavor in the leaves having been washed away by time anyway, “Anne took up many jobs around the village. She was always smarter than I was, and better with her hands too. She would fix up the houses after storms marched in from the sea. Eventually, she tried her hand at building one, and we moved in here. Sadly, no matter how much I watched her, I never got any better at such things myself.

When the whales came, we had been here for a few years. I walked into the village one day to sell what few fish I had been able to catch to find carts and people all throughout the main street. I found the village chief milling around their convoy and asked what was happening, and he told me to look around. He said the villagers were thin, and hungry, and that they were leaving. He said we should come if we wanted a future for our family.”

“That was probably the smart decision,” the friend with dark eyes offered.

“I thought so too, we were growing thin ourselves, rationing what little fish we could afford not to sell. I rushed home to tell Anne we should begin to pack. I was sure one of the villagers would let us hide away what few possessions we had on their wagon. Our parents had both been well dead by that time, but we had a good relationship with our neighbors. But when I tried to explain she became upset.”

“It’s hard to leave the place you grew up, and to have that decision made for you,” The Moth said.

“Yes, “ said the man, “but it wasn’t just that. She was angry with me for even suggesting the idea. She saw leaving here like leaving those memories we shared together behind. In her mind I had betrayed her for considering it. She insisted that the whales would leave, and that if they didn’t she would hunt them herself, that I should be willing to do the same. She wanted us to fight. I pleaded with her to consider sense, I told her we could form new memories somewhere better. Ultimately, that proved a mistake.”

“That seems irrational, one cannot fight against nature,” the friend with dark eyes said solemnly.

The man just shook his head, “I see how you would think that. You are still young. You still think a battle is about winning. It isn’t. Fighting is about conviction, it’s about declaring that something is more important than your own life. She was simply more courageous than I was, and upon hearing her words I understood this. At the time, all I could do was collapse to the floor, and cry, full of pity for my own weakness. She ultimately left me there, and stormed out of our home.

When I did find enough courage to chase after her, I ran outside to find her a few dozen meters off the coast, rowing our small fishing dinghy into the open ocean with a spear laid across her lap. I yelled after her to come back, but it was just met with a smile. ‘I’ll show you, my love.’ was all she called out as I jumped into the sailboat you see down on the beach now, and set off after her.

By the time I caught up, her boat was shaking violently. The weather was bad, and the wind whipped violently, making it difficult for me to maneuver with a sail. A pod of the whales had appeared and were thrashing their bodies against the bottom of her dinghy. I was still too far to get a clear picture, but I saw her standing there, hair blowing in the wind, with one of her legs up on the dingy’s bench, and the spear in her hand. She was jabbing at the water ferociously. I had given up using the sail at this point, and as I rowed up beside her she looked at me with a soft smile that I’ll never forget. It was then that a whale smashed into the hull, and her boat rocked violently to the side. She slipped, her spear flew high as she fell between the boats. I reached out a hand to grab her, and just as her fingers skimmed my palm, a shadow grew from underneath the water. She screamed, and I reached for my knife just in time to plunge it into the whale’s right eye, but it was too late. It grabbed her between its teeth and dove, transforming my beautiful wife from a person to a fading ripple of bubbles. Her body never washed ashore, and that was the last I saw of her.”

The fisherman removed his glasses, and wiped the wet from his eyes, “I’m sorry, travelers. I wish I had a more light hearted story to tell, but that has been my life. I live here, and try my best to keep her home from collapsing, eating the clams, and fighting against nature in her spirit. That’s why I stay.”

The Moth looked down at the floor, “I’m sorry.”

“I still think it’s a waste,” said the friend with eyes the color of ash.

The old man laughed again, “maybe you’re right,” he said, his smile steady, “but I'm content here, watching her memory. I don’t want anything else. Now, enough about me. You two tell me about your journey. Let this lonely fisherman learn what’s out there in the world.”

And so they did. The boys and the fisherman sat together for a few hours as The Moth and his friend spoke about the places they had seen, and the experiences they’d had. Hearing their tales, the man laughed and cried and slapped his knees excitedly, “who knew,” he would say intermittently, or “is that really true? I can hardly believe it.”

Eventually they all grew tired as the sun set, and began communicating as much in yawns as in speech. “You can stay here for the night if you wish, it must be too late to set up camp,” the old man offered, to which the traveling friends quickly accepted. Soon they were wrapped in blankets, having laid their sleeping bags out on the floor, fighting off the chill of the night. The fisherman retired to a bedroom in the back of the house, and the friends whispered briefly to one another,

“Does the tragedy of it ever bother you,” The Moth asked.

“The tragedy of what?”

“I don’t know, living. The human condition, I guess.”

“Is it tragic?”

“Today it seems tragic.”

“Do you see tragedy in the life of that man?”

“Do you not?”

“I don’t, no.”

“What do you see?”

“Something else.”

“But what?”

“I don’t know, something that makes me glad we stopped here.”

The Moth was the last to wake. He found the old man sitting once again on the stool with his pipe in his hand, and his gaze out the window. His friend was hunched over on the floor sharpening his knife. The Moth stretched, and spoke through a yawn, “good morning.”

“Good morning,” they replied in unison.

“Now that you’re up, I suppose it is time we head out,” the friend with eyes of tar said.

The fisherman turned to them, as they began to pack their things, “I lament that you can’t stay and tell me more of your stories. But, I suppose if you did, I’d only delay you from making new ones. All I ask is that you share your tales with all those like me that wish to hear, and please travel safely.”

The boys both nodded earnestly, and made their way out of the house.

“I think it’s time we say goodbye to the sea for a while,” The Moth said, and so they wound up the hills that led away from the shore before settling down atop one to heat up some coffee. As they sipped it, they could see the house below them, now small in the distance, the waves appearing to lap right up against it in an illusion of perspective. They watched in silence for a while before an ant-sized figure emerged, heading down the path, and behind the cliff where the traveling friends knew a small sailboat hid. “I know you’re angry with the sea right now, Moth, but I wonder if perhaps she deserves a farewell,” the friend with black eyes spoke.

“You aren’t ready to leave yet, are you?”

“Not quite yet.”

—----

The fisherman pushed hard, urging the vessel into the water, his feet slipping in the sand, “would you like a hand with that,” a voice called out.

“Oh Moth, hello,” the man wiped the sweat from his brow, “I thought you two had left.”

“We figured we might want to actually meet the sea, rather than simply look at her from afar,” The Moth’s friend said.

“These waters are too dangerous, I’m afraid,” the fisherman replied, “did you not hear me last night as I told my story.”

At this the dark eyed boy laughed, “did you not hear us as we told ours?”

The fisherman opened his mouth for a moment before he shut it and gestured to the boat with a shrug. The travelers took position at either side of him then, the three of them easily pushing it into the water. They hopped in, and the fisherman unfurled the sail. A breeze caught it quickly, and soon they were gliding toward the open ocean.

“So what are we doing?” Inquired the traveler with a shadow trapped in his eyes.

“Fishing,” the fisherman aptly replied.

“I thought all the fish were gone?” Moth asked.

“I suppose it isn’t fish we are after,” the man said, “really, it is a whaling expedition.”

No further discussion necessary, the travelers left the man to tend the sail, and took to watching the waves pass by. An hour passed with the waves lapping steadily against the hull of the sailboat. The weather was clear, and the breeze light but steady,

“I could fall into a state of hypnosis,” The Moth said.

“What would the sea ask of you?” His friend replied.

“Hopefully, nothing. I’d like to be left here as I am forever.”

“That would get boring.”

“I feel as if I’ve heard that before. Everything bores you.”

“Everything stagnant.”

“The ocean isn’t stagnant, it moves. It lives”

“It moves, but it never stops. It can’t live, because it can’t die.”

“That sounds melodramatic. Must they exist relative to one another?”

“I think so.”

“I wish they didn’t.”

“I know.”

“Maybe they don’t.”

“Maybe.”

Then, the pendulum of the waves was interrupted. A break in the pattern appeared a few feet in front of the boat, and then another to its starboard side, “whales,” the old man said under his breath, as he reached down and picked up his spear from the deck. The three of them watched as the pod circled the ship, blowing water into the air as they went, their heads appearing briefly above the water line before disappearing once more. The fisherman learned from one side of the sailboat to another, his eyes narrow and jaw clenched. Then, without warning, as one of the whales reared its head from the waves, the man leaped from the side of the boat. The travelers spun their heads around just in time to spot the scar that marked the whale’s eye, and watch the old man descend upon it, spear in hand. The Moth’s nose scrunched, anticipating what was to come, but as the spear neared the whale’s exposed head it suddenly slipped, and twisted skyward. The fisherman hit the water with a slap, and the shaft of the spear bounced off of the whale’s skin uselessly. Within seconds, the fisherman’s flailing arms disappeared beneath the water, along with the whale, a dark disturbance in the waves the only indication they were ever there. A few moments passed, but nothing changed. After a few more, the whales seemed to lose interest and floated away, leaving the travelers alone.

After a timeless period of silence, Moth furled the sail and they let themselves drift aimlessly for a while. Neither of them were able to find the right words to break the silence. Eventually, The Moth gave it a stab with some that his friend had been wishing he wouldn’t hear, “the scar on the whale’s eye.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“It was –”

“The wrong one.”

“Do you think he realized?”

“The spear?”

“Yeah.”

“You think it was on purpose?”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I think it really is time to say goodbye to the sea.”

“Yes, I'm ready to leave now.”

"Do you know how to sail?"

"A traveler has to know how to do everything if he wishes to survive."

"I take that as a no."

"I will very shortly."

"I can teach you."

"How do you know how to sail?"

"It's a story for another time,” The Moth said, his face blank, “do you still think his life wasn’t tragic?”

“My opinion hasn’t changed.”

“I think mine has.”