This is where I begin.

Our garden is overflowing, but on the road there is no sign of life; all sprayed relentless away.

Gray, black dust soot.

But no mind, as within a minute our four feet are upon the moss of the curved basin rocks and there is too much life to take in, here.

We climb past the petrified tree, sat like a giant's badly thrown pot, discarded, but hanging on, lopsided; climbed upon by generations and generations, and hardly an obstacle for you at all, now. We creep down the slide of the ashen gray glass.

Careful, careful.

And as the water rushes to meet our further neighbors, the secret beach is exposed. And this is where we shall go, twice a day, passing the igneous and the sandstone, the rock pools and the idiot yellow forests, slowly drying in the sun but sleekit still. You can hold my hand yet you run off to the heights. I call out warnings, terrified of the ending of my world in a few moments' time, should you slip or focus on a maroon red shell-less snail just a little too closely.

And here the sand is a renewed virgin. Here my feet slowly sink, the water creeping to my toes reminding me of my own childhood; the grit under the nail, a blink, and I am there, charcoal in my hand, decorating the rocks with evil lunged faces, the skull, and the crossbone and then a yelp and I'm back to you and your calls for attention.

I watch the waves, the gulls, the guillemots and you. I watch you. I breathe the air and I momentarily confuse a trickle of water with a fat broken heel. I lift and I pop seaweed for a scent achievable nowhere else but my memory. And soon, my son, you will be me. And I will be gone. And when I die, lay my body down, far, far along this furthest strand.

We cannot control the long lines. At best, I can skim a stone 17 steps, with luck. But after that I have no control — of the trajectory, the weight, the ripple of the water — so it is important we throw with grace and precision. The collapse of the flight; the illusion.

And I teach the curl. Explain my understanding of the cup of the base of the stone. A traditional black weight slate coin, perhaps not the best, for me. And every few moments we will hurl a brick, and laugh. For it always works to hurl a brick, for us.

I tire; you skip; I nudge a discarded crab and with a shard I remember a friend, battered by life’s low, easy tide and its own life changing harbor wave, its own tiny tsunami. Three nine three nine and what a life to live, for that fellow.

What a time to realize that this surge will be the last. That he cannot survive this swell. A crash and a panic and a struggle to breathe, perhaps. He could not find his nook in which to shelter.


"No, just give me a minute . . ."


Like warmth you return, holding a soap-shaped stone, curved and perfect and—"Look, I can use it to draw with."

And you carve swift, sharp marks.
One // Two // Three.

And will it still be here tomorrow?
We // Shall // See.