by Edward Earl

Created on: July 09, 2009

He stood stoicly on the irredescent sand gazing out across the crystal clear waters off Islamarada. He was in the Keys. He was home. This was the place of his dreams where everything was perfect and all the troubles of the world melted away, drowning in the warm Florida waters and shredded into oblivion by the beautiful reefs below. So, if all of this was true and this place was so perfect, why did he feel so alone, so utterly sad.

The feeling inside of him was like when his childhood pet, Mister the Shih-tsu, had been killed by his own vet and even worse than that unbearable pain of losing his pawpaw. This feeling was surely going to kill him or make him wish he was dead. In fact, he was already doing that very thing, pondering it so deeply that he failed to notice the tide had come in and he was now ankle deep in the warm waters he loved so much. The beach, like his soul, was being consumed. The only difference was that the waters would recede and the beach would live again while his soul was destined to eternal darkness, forever lost in the sea of failed love.

Finally awaken by no less than the evening darkness and the loss of the sun shimmering on the water, he turned and walked to a remote spot on his beloved beach and sat down. He looked around him and for a fleeting moment all of the happy times on this beach rushed through his memory, Hours and days of sandcastles, picnics and teen puppy love played in his mind like one of those home made movies you see with the shaky picture and the jagged soundtrack. Laughter and music filled those days.

Then, like the fastest fast forward ever made, he could see her standing on the nearby dune. As if she was still there he remembered that first time he brought her to his beach. He remembered how she was stunned by the beauty of the reefs but hated the feel of the wet sand at the edge of the surf between her toes. A smile crossed his face for a split second as he remebered her saying, "it feels icky" and the roaring laugh that followed. His mind became awash in all the memories of the hundreds of days spent here after that first and despite all those memories being so very pleasant, they hurled him ever deeper into the abyss of despair that had brought him here tonight.

After a while his mind cleared and he realized the perfection of his being on his beach this day. It was the final stanza of his life's poem, the final verse in the song of his days, the end of the epic saga that had been his life. With this clarity of mind, he rose to his feet and began to walk toward the place where his beach met the water. He faintly felt the water when he reached that spot, turned around and looked at his beach, just for a moment, then turned back around and simply walked until the memories were gone for good.

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