Old Peace

Running through my old writings and I came across this, from over a year ago. I miss this, whatever "this" is.

"Pulse.

The water laps at our feet, rushing over and between our toes, retreating slowly. Wistfully. It's night, and save for the glow of the shops behind us, the only glimmer of light flickers several hundred yards away to our right, lampposts lining a winding road. In the darkness, a kind of muted calm envelops us both and we face the roar of the blackened ocean.

The waves beckon, the moon almost apologetic as it edges into the surrounding darkness. On a night like this, even the stars are shy.

I feel the sand beneath my feet, the way the grains sink away from me with each gurgling wave, the way they pour over my toes anew with each onslaught of water. My feet sink deeper into the fine sand. The ground I stand on is giving way. When my feet have finally disappeared underneath layers of rock, I turn in the darkness and stare intently at the vacuous void where I assume his face might be.

"You know, last summer I was on a beach around this time of year. It wasn't at night though. It was during a typhoon."

I wait for him to respond, look at his silhouette for a hint of a nod. I think he turns to look at me.

"What was it like?" he asks, a voice forming from an invisible mouth. Even in the darkness, I know he's keeping himself in check, careful to sound disinterested though he wants to know more. I know this because as he says it, he draws his right foot through the water, allowing the edge of the waves to brush his toes three times before taking a step backward on the sand. He's curious.

"It was amazing, something that's hard to describe. There were just a few of us out there, right against the water, and the waves meshed with the rain. You couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. I wish you could've been there."

I notice that as I recount the adventures of last year, I have to almost shout to be heard above the sound of water. I've never told anyone much about that day nearly one year ago, and how much the sheer power of those crashing waves had meant to me. And yet, in the pitch black night, I say these things aloud.

It's freeing.

I can almost feel him grin in the darkness.

"And this? How does this compare to that day?"

I blink back tears and a choking sensation in my throat as I quickly glance at the faded lights to my right. I turn my head away from where he stands, just a few feet from my left, lest he see me cry.

And I smile.

For an hour we shout to one another, pretending that we are calling out back and forth across a gorge rather than the few feet of sand we have between us. We bring up pointless things, a stream of consciousness conversation. Under the cloak of night, we learn more about one another than we ever could sitting down to dinner under offensive yellow lights, though we've known each other for a lifetime. A small family of three treads softly behind us, their feet sinking down quickly into the cool sand, their voices a background murmur. Time to go.

We stand in the darkness, in the water, ankle deep in memories and understanding.

The water continues to pulse against the sand, reuniting and departing all in one motion.

But we're already gone."