I’m alone in the sand. The grains are hot and they burn but I cannot move, and I don’t want to open my eyes. Seagulls squawk somewhere up there, many of them, circling. I wonder if they’ll morph into vultures and pick my bones clean.
I grasp at sand, weak brittle fingers. The waves roll and crash, roll. It doesn’t really sound like thunder at all, I think, that’s just something people say. Wind is hot and blasts me, dries me out, chisels me bare.
The life I lived before is like a picture I once saw, dim and distant, unrealistic. Riding waves was supposed to lead to somewhere else. There is nowhere else. The storm was my last torment and waves lead only here. It was a final attempt to find something that could light me up. Instead it was the sky that lit up as lighting streamed down from the purple clouds, as ice rained on me, beat me down. My legs are broken, my back feels broken. The rest is broken too.
I drift, in and out, in and out. There’s a dream. I’m an eagle, or some kind of large bird. Above the purple storm I soar, creased up little clouds are far below me, starlight and space feels inches away. But then suddenly I forget how to fly and down I go, falling. My feathers are frayed and pointless. I hurtle towards the ground below. As I near it, suddenly I know, I remember how to fly again. I flap, flap, flap away. Only it’s too late and I fall to my death.
