Short: The Turning of the Tide

“It’s rather relaxing,” I said.

He groaned groggily. I kicked his limp head, and he sputtered out profanities.

“Wake up,” I said.

“What the hell!” he shouted.

“It’s peaceful,” I continued. “The waves come in and out, in and out.”

“Where are we?”

“Just a beach, any beach. Smell that sea air!” I said.

“You fucking faggot! I’ll make you wish you were dead.”

“Me, the faggot? You’re the one who’s been up my ass my whole life. Look at those waves.”

He began to struggle, but he was buried too deeply in the sand. Just his head, his giant head, stuck out, big as a beach ball.

“Get me out of here,” he shouted.

“And just like any beach, any lonely beach in midwinter—we’re utterly alone together, you and I,” I added as an aside, “—it is constantly in transition. That’s why I think I love the beach so much. Change without change. It’s never the same and yet it is always the same. I could be just like you, sitting there watching the waves for the rest of my life. Could watch them come in and out, in and out.”

He kept swearing as I talked, so I kicked his head again. Blood was spurting out his ear.

“Listen, my grotesque friend.” He was quiet. “We’ve had our ups and downs in life, like those waves. They made you into a giant, which is what they meant to make, a monster. They made me, which is what they didn’t mean to make, just a regular Jack, though they didn’t have the decency to name me. And I was trapped with you. Bigger than me, able to do whatever you wanted. You were as big as the ocean; inevitable as the tide. Do you remember this?” I asked.

Unzipping my pants, I let loose a golden stream of urine into his black mess of hair. His vocabulary, as regarded profanity, proved wonderful. Try as he might to squirm, his head was too big to miss.

“I’m sorry, that was childish, but don’t worry,” I said as the last drops fell. “The sea will wash it clean.”

Short: Twenty Years

Hate

Poem: Silence

The Grave and the War