The sunlight hit his resting eyelids and woke him up. He was
a big fan of waking up naturally. There was no better way to start your day
than with the natural light of the sun burning through your eyelids, he always
said. It was refreshing and invigorating. Of course it didn’t really let you
know what time it was, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t have much use for
watches these days. Sure it meant that he woke up earlier in the summer and
later in the winter, but he didn’t care. Felt like getting back to nature.
He sat up and stretched. His bed was super comfortable and
he was loath to leave its embrace, but he had a full day ahead of him. He
scratched his beard. Wow, it’s really coming in, he thought. Have to shave one
of these days before people confuse me with a wino. Do people even say wino
anymore? He didn’t know and didn’t care.
He stood up, threw on some clothes and headed outside.
Seemed like a good day to hit the beach. Luckily, he lived within walking
distance (Location! Location! Location!).
He opened his patio door and trotted down the wooden steps
to the sand. The surf was still cold as it washed over his feet. Now that’ll
wake you up! Diving in the bracing cold, he enjoyed the sensation of gliding
under the waves, like a sea creature trying to break the force of the rip tide
and swim out to freedom. A cool sea creature, maybe one with laser eyes or
something.
After his swim, he went back to his home for a morning bite.
What will it be this morning? Nothing wrong with a little fish. He did live by
the ocean after all. Seafood was plentiful. He headed to the kitchen and sautéed
up some sea bass on his Viking brand cooktop. Very modern. A bit pricey, but it
was more than enough for his simple needs. He then fed some organic lettuce
that he had bought from the hippy grocery store down the street to his pet
turtle, Mr. Brooks. If only you were a mutant ninja, he thought, then we could
talk about all of the radical and tubular stuff they could think of.
Feeling a bit bored, he plopped down on his couch (damn
expensive, and the Swedish give their furniture such weird names, what does
Schnietz Marphis even mean?) to watch tv to check the news of the day. Sadly,
when he turned on his 72-inch flatscreen, we was treated
only to static. Cable must be on the fritz still. Seems like the television
never works. If he cared more about what was going on outside of a mile range
of his house, he might be a little more proactive in haranguing the cable
company. But to be honest, he was quite content with letting the outside world
do its thing.
He decided to call up his friend Doug to see what he was up
to this morning. But when he called, he got no answer. So instead, he decided
to go out on the beach, light a bonfire and amuse himself. After all, he could
be his own best friend. Fewer arguments and disagreements that way.
He gathered as much driftwood as he could find and set it up
to make a fire. Pulling out his favorite beach chair from the garage, he
settled himself in, in front of the warm of the fire and just enjoyed the
serenity and beauty of the ocean. The silver sparkles of the waves’ crests as
they crashed down into the water. The reflectiveness of the ocean’s surface as
it glinted in the sunlight. The sound of the tide was its own music, its own
rhythm, as it beat upon the shore. Soon, the hypnotic pulsating beat of the
waves gently lulled him to sleep. This is the perfect life, he thought. I
wouldn’t trade it for anything.
***
The sunlight hit his eyelids, dragging him back to the world
of the living. He barely got any sleep. The rock he used as a pillow left
indentations on the side of his head. The palm fronds he vainly attempted to
use as blankets had abandoned him in the night, blown to the far side of the
cave by heavy winds during the night. He was freezing and miserable.
He stumbled outside to the desolate beach he’d woken up to
see every morning for the last 198 days. He gazed out into the ocean’s
distance. Nobody to be seen. Nothing
to be seen except water.
Still alone, he thought to himself. The lonely king of
nothingness.
Mr. Brooks, his pet rock, silently agreed.
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