Sandcastles

The heat.

Stifling.

Wilting my memory under the weight of it.

It was bright even before I woke. I knew it from the orange sheen glowing radiant through shut lids, and from the flood of blindness as they parted.

Blind, yes. But the other senses keen.

Sand.

Yes, most definitely atop a bed of sand; its earthen smell and warmth unmistakable. Thousands of granules. I could feel all of them. Could feel none of them.

How long has it been? How many hours? How did I even come to this place?

Sailing!

Yes, we’d been sailing. Yes. Yes!

The air had been so swift and cool then, myself shaded at the helm, she by my side, white dress galloping wildly around her diminutive frame, the salty wind dancing about and lifting the fabric. And the smile. Oh, that smile, more powerful than the sun.

And how confident was I. How utterly invincible in that moment. That moment of love.

And now this. This. Blindness on a bed of sand.

Well, what of it?

Finally I struggled to my elbows, grains clinging to my skin, eyelids blinking uncontrollably. Desert all around me. No boat. No debris.

No her.

I can survive without her.

I can survive without.

And I will.

But how did it come to this? Surely my fault. Surely…

Well, what of it then? What of it?

A scrunch of my hand brings with it a pile of scalding gold. The heat. This heat. Always such heat that follows a cool breeze. Always the heat. I open my palm and let the sand drain back to the ground between my fingers.

How long?

How many hours since I looked at her. Felt her. Smelled her.

How long since her words and her smile buoyed me atop the water?

I can survive witho…water! Yes, we were certainly on the water. The boat. My boat! The Sultry Siren. How she’d laughed at the name. Laughed. But it was a good laugh. Not the mocking one the birds now screeched overhead, circling, circling ever lower.

“Away with you, gulls!” I screamed limp through parched chords, waving a chapped limb hopelessly skyward, failing to cause even a ripple in their pattern.

“Away with you. You will not have me! You will not…”

Have me.

Please have me.

What am I saying? How pathetic. How…

Wait…gulls? Surely water not far behind. Surely a reprieve. Surely…no, how sad and desperate. Clinging to the thinnest of threads. I am better than this. So much better than this. So much better.

Well, what of it, then? What of it?

How many hours? How many hours of silence? And how many more to come?

Sickening. Weak. Pathetic.

My fault. Too aggressive. Yes! Plotted a course too aggressive. Too ambitious. Yes, yes! Of course. But I was invincible then. Invincible.

Now?

Sad.

Pathetic.

The gulls circle lower and lower as the sand boils beneath, the sun consuming me from above. Hopeless, of course. By now it is surely hopeless.

How long? How many hours?

Pathetic.

Well, what of it?

And that is when the the message comes, unexpectedly and deliciously without warning.

Thinking of you

~K

Yes! Yes!

And my mind and my heart and my soul are reborn, devouring and re-devouring the words as I rebound under their healing properties, replenished as if by some magical balm; one exclusive to her possession.

And again I’m at the shaded helm, on course, she beside me, hair and garb flapping in the salty current, as if she had never left.

And perhaps she hadn’t.

A mirage, perhaps? Just sandcastles of insecurity, razed now by even this modest grace of endearment.

But it was enough. It was more than enough. At least until the next time, when the seconds of silence draw on again to minutes and then to hours. Until the sandcastles are built again.

But until then I am fortified, I am renewed.

I am invincible.

And what of it then?

What of it?