Past Future

March 1, 2018April 6, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

Miami synthwave, vaporwave

The smell of the sea came in off the water. They sat around a white tablecloth, on the porch of Ran’s house. Alli had put out the long, silver candlesticks. Beyond the wooden railing, tufts of beach grass flailed in the wind.

A full moon rose in the east, a crisp, silver disk floating in the pink and cyan haze, the end of another perfect summer day. Ran came out in a dress shirt holding a Merlot and two wine glasses aloft.

As they nursed the glasses, the orb of the sun slipped below their view. The evening’s last seagulls landed and pecked away at sand dollars.

They had spent the afternoon combing the beach with a metal detector, found in the basement of Ran’s house – just looking for old coins. Their search yielded an assortment of beer bottle-caps and a rusted bottle opener, “Courtesy of the patrons of some party,” Ran said.

Alli brought out the baked chicken and Ran got the baguette. She had bought the loaf at Maison Kayser, before they had left the city this morning. She cut some for the meal and broke her portion in half.

Turning the stem of her wine glass, Alli watched rabbits bound in and out of the dune grass. “What do you think about checking out the abandoned house, by the inlet?” she asked.

“Can we bring our metal detector?” Ran joked.

“Sure,” Alli laughed, “Electronic thermometers for cold spots. Radar guns. Infrared goggles. Anything.”

The last vestiges of the sun had disappeared. Only red light remained. “One day, I will teach you how to surf,” Ran said, looking out at the waves.

“Night surfing too?” Alli grinned.

Ran looked back at her, “Whatever you want.”

They cleared away the plates, folded up the tablecloth, retreated inside to the retro, floral-print couch. “Festive,” Alli remarked, “When did you get this?”

“Maybe five years ago,” Ran mused, “A going-out-of-business clearance sale.”

They sat down and watched cable on the ancient wooden set Ran had rigged up to play today’s TV. She had gutted it, cleaned out the old parts, and put the pieces of a new TV into the old case, “New wine in old skins,” Ran had explained. It still worked.

The glare of the TV shone into the night, as breakers crashed onto the shore.

so '90s

Songs:

Seapony – “Blue Star”

R.E.M. – “Crush with Eyeliner”

Alien Personality

February 24, 2018July 23, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

the future is now

Third night. Waves rolling in from outside the bay. Alli ran down the steps. Her trainers hit the sand. And she was off, in the direction of Mallo’s Mini-Mart.

The wind shook the palm trees. A gale was moving out on the water, further down the coast. Alli pulled her jean jacket in closer. The leaves flapped, battering each other in the breeze. The full moon lit up the beach; shadows lengthening in the sharp contrast. Rocks and crabs stood out, claws clicking in the night.

She walked past Mallo’s quickly. The clubs were quieter tonight, as if hunkering down for the incoming tempest. A few rockers hung about, holding Blue Moons. Solo cups littered the sidewalk outside the store. A Camaro sat in the parking lot, swarmed by punks and bikers.

The night ambience resumed, swallowing up Mallo’s in its wake. Alli kicked a cigarette butt on the ground.

Scorched logs from yesterday’s fire lay abandoned. Alli nudged one with her foot, watching it collapse into ash. Gusts whipped the eddies into tiny maelstroms, swirling without purpose.

The cliffs loomed in Alli’s line of sight, silhouettes against the cold, navy sky. Alli could see one of the tunnels, hollowed out by centuries of erosion, from here. It was low tide, Alli reminded herself – but still, her pulse began to drum in her ears.

The beach grew thinner. The jungle trees fell away to shrubbery and then to grass, and before Alli knew it, she was walking between the white cliffs and the sea. The surf menaced from its turf. Alli reminded herself that she could swim; swim parallel to the rip tide, not directly back to shore, headfirst into the wrathful waves.

She walked with her hand against the stone, but even the rock walls opened into the caves Ran had mentioned – various natural hallways and corridors running to the other side of the cliff, holes in which she could see the sea.

The water was close now, churning a few feet from her ankles. The lip of the islet hung a right, reaching out to the sandbars in the bay. She was through the caves and the cliffs now.

Back out in the moonlight, Alli squinted and looked around at the open water, the crashing waves, the rolling grass reaching back toward the cliffs. The sand stretched out into the sea, pining for some remote, lost land. A sand bridge to nowhere. Even the fields fell away and there was only water and sand, a primeval landscape, reversing the ancient walk uphill, upstream.

The ghost ship floated into view, metal mast winking in the night, rigging long lost and rotted. There were no ghosts, Alli thought to herself as she plodded on, through the damp sand.

She reached it – the black wreckage spread out like a spiderweb. The ocean had pounded a hole in the hull, through which, there was only darkness. Alli picked her way closer, through the seaweed carpeting the ground, making the rocks slippery. She peered into the ruin and let her eyes adjust.

Inside, shafts of moonlight illuminated dull pools of water, shrunken or swollen on the ocean’s whim. Beams had caved in. Broken wooden boxes lay discarded or smashed. Alli accidentally stepped in a puddle and soaked her foot to the skin.

“Well, are you going to go in?” a voice asked.

Alli nearly choked. She was still breathing heavily when she turned to see Ran behind her.

“You can’t – do something like that-!” Alli gasped.

“It was worth it for the look on your face,” Ran grinned, crossing her arms – which were tan and wiry, covered in fine, feathery red hair.

Alli’s heart slowed. She sat down on a beam at the threshold. She thought of her warm cabana and wondered what she was doing out here.

Ran came and sat down beside her, “Listen, I am sorry I scared you.”

Alli sighed, endorphins flooding her brain, post-scare. She stared out into the ocean. Sky and water met in an endless circle. Without the other, neither was complete.

Ran put an arm around Alli’s shoulder. That’s when Alli noticed the smaller boat, “You rowed here?”

“Yes,” Ran grinned, “I am surprised you actually came out.”

Alli shook her head, “You’re awful.”

“Come on, let me take you home,” Ran said.

Ran got up and offered Alli her hand. Alli gave her an incredulous look but put her hand in Ran’s. In the boat, Alli sat in the front, watching as Ran unhooked the oars.

They cast out into the sea, two figures on that unending horizon. The moon sunk silently, surrounded by clouds rushing southward, ahead of the storm.

urban spelunking