The edge of a continent
I’d filled the XL fast food soda cup with 2 Budweisers and I walked out of the motel to the beach. There was no one out there except for the seagulls and sandpipers. The waves came up over the beached sea weed and then went back out. It did it over and over again. I’d been told in elementary school that it had something to do with the moon, the way the waves worked that is.
It was about 3 in the afternoon. The city where I lived was way behind me on the highway. I’d left suddenly. I found that I did that sometimes. It confused people that I knew, they’d call me up and say, “hey, let’s get some Italian food.” And I’d say, “I’m not there.” And then there would be a long pause and I’d have to make up a story about the whole thing.
So, I sat there on the beach, with the Italian food and the phone calls way behind me. I drank the beer through a straw and I watched the moon pull the water back and forth over the surface of the Earth. In elementary school they’d taught me the surface of the Earth was called the crust. It was thin and right below it there was fire, fire, fire.
*Bill Winchester writes fiction and poetry