The recluse who lives uphill from the beach often says he’s seen so many sunsets they no longer move him
It’s the morning now that lights his bedroom, gets him out of bed, leads him into the garden to watch the fragile tongues of anthuriums lick the untouched air, egrets strutting atop scarlet bougainvillea hedges, gulls and frigate birds circling above boats anchored in the bay
His days have become a matter of choosing between likes and dislikes, dreams and facts, hunger and lust, the end game at nightfall when he must face the moon
The best part of an afternoon is an aimless walk along the ocean where white caps splash against the shore bringing remnants of a world already swirling into disintegration
As a child, he was told he could sleep without fear, that the planet was not doomed to decompose for millions of years Over time he learned not to trust predictions or assume outcomes, to be content feeling cool breezes drift off a calm sea, the palm of the sun’s hand on his naked back, the comfort of warm sand under the skin of his feet
Today on the beach he smiles at a humped old timer in a crumpled porkpie hat sitting on a stone seawall to peer over powder blue umbrellas at bathers stretching in animal somnolence on brightly striped towels, at three young sisters he nicknames, “Humility, Integrity, Kindness,” virtues he has long sought but does not yet own
His thoughts lead him to the ocean’s edge where he squints at the writhing figure of a man on a distant sand bar illuminated by shafts of sun shooting through slowly moving clouds The shadowy shape waves at him, disappears, reappears to wave again and again Is it another man waving desperately to be found, a man in need of help or simply a projection of himself? He blinks and it is gone
He wanders back through the carefree laughter of the young bathers dancing to guitars, bongos and tambourines, trudges up the hill to sit again in the garden of his empty house and search for his soul in the midnight sky