BEACHING
That was all, we swam back from the wreck of the boat against the currents that pulled away from the shore until our feet touched bottom. Drenched, panting, our clothes hindering our movement, we let ourselves drop to the sand, pale in the light of the moon of that last night.
We were only three: she, he, and the other; you fell asleep, we said; we threw sand in your open mouth and you snored, no, I was dead after all that swimming, I need first aid and laughter, more sand to my open lips, just as the spark leapt to the stack of firewood, we’d protected it with our body from the hands of the others and managed to get the flame lit, just as the wind had stopped blowing from our mouths, eyes, holes, orifices that are not the same but work anyway; we were showing each other the entrances as well as the exits, touch here, see how they don’t look alike but work just like in the bonfire, our clothes were spread out to one side and we lay down on top of them so we could bite and cling to each other and share space, shivering, crying out with and without laughter, engorged where the wind wouldn’t blow, try this, suck on that, viscosity like we’d never known, and yet; we found a way to swim with the full bottle, don’t ask how I held on; tension, reflexes; the first birdsong and as the red moon vanished, glimmering golden on a distant hilltop we’d never seen before, speaking without saliva at that hour, fluid without body, I don’t believe you. Yes I do.
We believe you. We spoke only in whispers, at the volume of the crickets and frogs, softer than the wind which is all one but everywhere. Whereas, the three of us, more than conversing, were explaining to each other, in voices that didn’t sound anything like dialogue, the reason why it wasn’t the first time we had spoken. We saw her face, his face, the other’s face, confronting each other, the imaginary memory illuminated, the moon had been concealed by the fog, and we wondered who we were now.
We heard all of that, along with the sound of the sticks burning down to embers, the embers taking flight as ash, the ashes scattering in the wind. We heard our lives but not our stories. Hers, his, the other’s, and without moving we dried ourselves. We placed the last of the ashes inside a seashell we’d found there, where we lit the bonfire, a single, translucent seashell that we sealed shut.