the nuclear bomb

there is a distant whine in the sky. it goes and comes, fighting with the breaking waves for superiority. there is an almost inaudible rasp of razor palm leaves rubbing in the air. people laugh and walk, across the pool. a single chime sounds. i'm sitting outside, on the porch, at the beach. eveything is bathed in a sick orange light from a dual lightpost in the middle of the pool area. there's a kinder flourescent one near the beach entrance. best of all is the moon. it is almost full, like a pockmarked porcelain figure, more eggish on one side than the other. the whole sky is splotchy but clear, although even in the clear around the moon the light betrays a thin layer of haze. a nightwatchman fucks with the hottub machine, lifting wooden grates and clinking his keys.

i know of nothing more relentless than the ocean. nothing that breaks more and remains the single thing that cannot be undone. faint whiff of cheap tobacco on the air, it barely moves. it's the nightwatchman, standing back to me as if he might piss in one of the tubs, staring up at the sky. just stands there, smoking. as the minutes pass. some other guy rolls his cooler all the way down past the other empty porches to the one next door and the nightwatchman leaves. goes back to fiddling with the wooden doors and water jets. the moon shines bright through a patch of truly clear sky, although it is about to be eaten by a mouth-shaped cloud.

i am sick, truly sick, o brothers. for somebody... i could say rachel mcadams but that wouldn't further any realistic cause so i will just leave it as somebody at all. just... somebody. i have it stuck in my poor head that everything is better with somebody. i'm sitting outside at the beach - alone - and i hate it. if there was somebody here, maybe we could walk down and take a look at the shore, spread a towel, look at the moon, something. but it would be better than being here alone. there's that security i lack. some people see being single as synonymous with freedom. and since my idea of freedom isn't drifting around hooking up with people because you can, it doesn't sit as well with me. i'm just... at loose ends. it's not the most terrible thing in the world. i survive just fine, i enjoy myself when i can, i love my family most of the time...

it's just that... when everything else fails you, the only comfortable place to be is with the right company.