Written by J.S. Sollazzo – He wakes up before the dreams come, carefully rolls out of bed, and slips on the swim trunks he put out the night before. The door creaks as he shuts it behind him, but his wife doesn’t stir, thanks to last night’s wine.

His bike is waiting like a getaway car on the side of the garage. He climbs aboard and pedals furiously through the fog billowing from the sea like the cold breaths of God.

He’s sweating when he finally reaches the beach. No one else is there. The sun is still only an abstraction, just a thin purple line on the horizon. Seagulls sleep just beyond the place where the waves subtly define the shore. Though he feels no wind in his hair, the palm trees behind him rustle gently, singing their familiar song.  The salty, sandy smell of it all brings him as close to peace as he’ll ever get.

***

“Are you alright?” He tires of the question. How does he answer? Is “Yes, I’m fine” too large a lie, too easy an excuse to change the subject? Is “No, I’m not” too unexpected, too much of a burden on the asker? He hates himself for not knowing the rules of grieving.

But here, it doesn’t matter. Here, there is only the rhythm of the waves. And later, soon after the sun begins to burn away the fog, the tourists will arrive, smelling of coconut oil and carrying their kites and beach chairs and coolers of beer. They ignore him, as if he is invisible, which is the reason he comes here. He sits on the warm white sand, closes his eyes and listens to their laughter, tries to lose himself in their ignorance.

And sometimes, if only for a second, he forgets his son’s face. His curly hair and blue eyes and pink mouth fracture and swirl about his brain like a flock of startled birds. It feels good, like a deep breath after being under water for a long time. But then the shame comes, and his boy’s perfect little face snaps back into his mind like a scream.

He watches the sunset. The spectacle used to comfort him, reassure him that his life has depth and meaning. But now he feels nothing at all.

He comes home, his skin red and hot, and finds his wife on the couch, staring at the muted television. He doesn’t need to see the empty wine bottles to know she’s drunk. He sees it in her eyes, smells it on her skin. She looks at him with disgust. He knows she hates him, but he doesn’t have the energy to care. He tries to remember his life the way it was before, but it is impossible. It’s as if there never was a before, only an after.