A Shore Thing

         I walk on the beach. You know the beach is serene because all I can hear is the roaring rumble of waves reaching for the coast. The seabirds cackle. Signal above the noise. And the sand feels hot. It’s hot enough to burn but not hot enough to hurt.

         I walk past scrubby forests of coconut trees and other palms. The dark green bushes showcase flowers painted the colors of passion. The salty breeze is evicted from my nostrils as a wave of odor, both warm and fried, tickles me.

         On a moment’s hesitation, I resist the urge. Instead I double back toward the woodline up the beach. A palm had partially fallen in the soft give of the sandy ground trying desperately to turn to soil. The tree was outstretched. The green mop-top of the tree had twisted and turned and found the sun again. It must have been felled like this for some time and had adjusted its growth.

         I roll my body into the shade under the horizontal trunk. I didn’t need fatty, salty, sugary beach food. I needed to think. I told myself I was going to keep writing. I had such energy even a week ago. I wrote some 30k words in a week and half. Imagine writing for three months. You’d have a book. Maybe not a good book. Fine, sure. Maybe it would suck. Maybe it would join the thousands upon thousands of nameless books and faceless authors that will never be read ever again. Not since the author read it herself. Or the publisher maybe. But hardly another soul.

         Would that be so bad? Your own book, like a dirty secret no one can know. Only some poor shmuck late for his flight and in desperate need of something – anything to stare at for a few hours. Some lady on a beach, or by a pool, reading for an afternoon while sipping mai tais. A college kid desperate for a fresh perspective only to trash the book to his friends and use the pages to roll joints. We all need a job to do.

         Nonetheless, my story would be out there. Something from my head. It would exist in few hardcopies and certainly it would exist on the internet. It could last a thousand years. It would last three thousand years. Scholars, poets, students, and philosophers will study my words. They will hang on each syllable. They will inject themselves – their own insecurities, their own skewed perspective and limited beliefs – into my words. They would make me theirs. They would explain my opinions, what I mean underneath, and where my thinking was archaic now that we have come so far.

         One day I’m a millionaire author, loved and respected by all. The next day I am washed up. A has-been before I was ever a is-being. One day I can conquer mountains. I can write 100,000 words in a cool afternoon given the right homebrew. The next day I am a slug. I am a maggot. I am an infestation upon the earth. The next I am Hemingway. I compare my hair, my facial features, my mustache to Ernest’s and decide it is only right that I am his reincarnation. It is only right that I am here to carry his torch. We all know Hemingway, sure, but I’ll bring him out of obscurity. I’ll tell people what’s underneath his words.


         I come back into consciousness with a gasp like sucking my soul back in through my face. The wind is cooler now, blowing in from the ocean. I smell rain. I’m in the shade, but the sun is all around me. The rays bounce off the white sand and kiss my cheek. Over the water a herd of tall puffy grey clouds stampede toward the shore. To the right, a flock of seabirds abandon the beach and make for shelter. To my left, a shaft descends from the clouds falling on the fishes below. Dead center to my view, lightning splits the worlds in half. I open my notebook and begin to write.