“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
― Anais Nin
From my old journal, The Daily Epiphany, March 10, 1999:
Lee and I walked the crowded beach in the middle of town to kill the time. That little bugger walked for two hours straight, completely wearing me out. We both saw all sorts of interesting stuff.
Lee saw seashells, bits of colored rock, the best of which he stuffed into his pockets. He considered it a great honor to find jellyfish washed up on the beach, of which there were many. There were pet dogs to pet, jetties to walk out on, giant waves to marvel at. He finally wore me out and I sat down on a log and watched him standing along at the surf’s edge, watching the waves. He walked back to me and said, “Daddy, I don’t understand things, how things work, how they make big buildings and machines that work.”
I noticed other things: the drunk leaning over on the seawall bench next to the souvenir piers and puking, thin yellow vomit streaming out ’til he must have been empty, then popping up and asking passers-by “Hey, man, can I please borrow a dollar-twenty five, man,” his buddy, sleeping the sleep of the dead on a piece of old carpet on the sand below him, two other drunks dropping beer bottles down on his head trying to wake him, a family that looked like rejects from Jerry Springer having a heated argument, backwoods accents so strong I couldn’t even make out what they were saying, one female surfer, a beginner, was having a lot of trouble keeping her skimpy top on. I don’t understand how things work either.
And today’s flash fiction:
Dream of the Rising Sea by Juan Morales
from Bending Genres
Bill Chance 