The ocean, it’s as expansive and infinite as you make it.

The waves are calm, and if you look

long enough, the horizon disappears and your vision is focusing on the sounds of the waves, the
subtle wind.

The Man stands in the sand. The neon lights of the local tavern spits out beer logos. The man
picks up his shoes from the sand, and starts walking towards the street.

The man crosses the street, going towards the bar. A car squeals around the corner, the man
jumps up and onto the curb – nearly falling into the bar. The man bumps into the jukebox, a
song with a killer beat begins.

Ramone steps out of the car, he opens the door for the Lovely Lady in the passenger’s seat.
Ramone and the lovely lady walk into the tavern. The man is in a trance watching the two of
them enter.

The lady looks at the man, “Nice choice”, she says.

The man smiles at the lady. Ramone and the lady take a seat on the patio.

The man sits at the bar, “What can I get you?” says the bartender.

“Just an orange juice.”

“OK.”

“You with the tourist group?” Asks the bartender.

“Me? No. I’m not on a tourist group.” The man self-consciously talks.

“You here with your wife?”

“No, I’m here alone.”

“Oh. You visit here long?”

“I’ve been here… I got in yesterday morning. Spent the day at the beach.” Says the man.

“It’s a nice beach.”

“It is a beautiful place.”

“Yeah. You stay for long, or how long you stay?”

“I’m not really sure. I rented a room for a week, so I might stay for a week.”

“Okay, man. You know, if you need company – like, a girl – I can get you a girl.”

“Excuse me?”
The bartender nods his head, “Yes”.

“No… thanks. I’m not here for that.” Says the man.

“Boy? You want boy?”

“No. How much for the drink?”

“Two-fifty.”

The man pays and leaves.

The man walks down the empty street alone. All of the businesses are closed, yet one can hear
faint whoops and cheering to the north – closer to the town square. The man walks away from
the city, uphill towards the villa.

At the top of the hill, the man turns around to look on the docile town below. The man removes
a business card from his pocket:

Lisatt – 5.633.10274.r6

Dialing the number from his room phone, the man anxiously waits for an answer.

Ramone and the lovely lady dance in the street. The man rides a bicycle past the dancing couple,
he goes further into the town.

The Woman stands underneath the orange glow of the street lamp, waiting.

Noise of crowds echo throughout the surrounding streets. The man walks up to the woman, and
they go hand in arm into the darkness of the streets.

It’s near past two in the morning when the man and the woman speak to each other.

“Why did you come here? Most people, they need to escape from their lives.”

“I came here to see the ocean.”

He would sip on coffee all day, and think about the past. He would replay and change every
incident in his memory until it suited him – until all of his memories were now fabrications –
wherein everything turned out just as he planned. This moment he was in, this coffee he was
drinking on top of the hill overlooking the ocean was exactly where he had intended to be, and
every moment of his life had lead up to this point. The man could not be more satisfied with the
way his life turned out, it seemed.

And once the man decided he’d had enough coffee, a good, long walk would clear his mind. So
away he walked, down the hill towards the Oceanside town.
It was three in the afternoon when the man felt his stomach rumble with torque. He stepped into
a shop and ran toward the back bathroom. The owner yelled at the man, “Restrooms are for
customers only!” but the man’s mission was too important not to stop.

The man ended up eating a fine meal of crab, mussels soaked in butter, and all the thick bread he
could stuff in.

As daylight turned to dusk, the man stood in the sand on the beach. To his left, a group of
tourists were packing up all of their garbage. The docks to the man’s right were busy, with some
lover taking an evening boat ride towards the setting sun.

At this point, the man could not move from the beach, he was stuck. The man was quite content
where he was in that spot, he had no particular rush to be anywhere, and he had no idea what
next to do. At first the man felt scared, then his fears turned to a paranoia, and last, an
overwhelming sense of dread coupled with loneliness.

He should’ve done it last night, he thought of the mistakes he made and he corrected them…

The man opened his eyes, and now he stood underneath the night sky and its stars. He picked up
his socks and shoes, and towards the corner tavern he went.

“An orange juice, please.” The man said to the bartender.

“Okay.”

The man stood up from the bar, he walked towards the curb, and looked down the street. He
stood there in anticipation of something which never happened.

“Did you get any luck, my friend?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Said the man.

“You get a woman?” Asked the bartender.

“Excuse me?”

“I set you up with Eliza, last night – did you enjoy her?”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you have me confused with someone else.”

“No—no I remember you from last night.”

“How much for the orange juice?”

“Two-fifty.”

“Thanks.”
As the man left the place, the bartender shouted something, but the chatter of the tourist crowd
mixed with the music made him inaudible.

A few cars passed by the man as he walked towards the villa on the hill.

To his left was the ocean, the crescent moon hanging in the tapestry of the sky. From this
distance the man’s eyesight was not too keen, but he thought he saw two figures against the
backdrop of the sand, silhouetted against the water.

Indeed there were two people on the beach that night. From atop the hill, the man could make
out the man and the woman in the reflection of the moon and the rippling waves of the water.
Two lovers in each other’s arms.

“They look like ants from up here”, the man said aloud, and turned in for the night inside the
villa. As he undressed inside his room, the man’s attention was on the noose lying on the end
table, next to the open door to the patio.

He was trying to remember if, at this moment, he was breaking off and engagement. Was he
supposed to be with her, down there? The red light blinked on his touch-tone telephone to notify
him that he had messages waiting.

It’s too late for that… he was already in the process of sleep, feeling the cool night ocean breeze
enter his room, his heavy head sunk into the pillow as his eyes closed. His focus drifted to the
white noise that lulled him effortlessly into a deep, dark slumber.

The man sits on the edge of his bed, it’s morning now, and the heat is beginning to suffocate the
air. The man stares out beyond the curtains, his gaze fixated on one point – everything else
surrounding him fades away.

The man does not realize for how long he has been here, sitting and being in this way. When did
he wake up? The man cannot move, he does not notice his shallow breath. His mind is blank, he
does not recall yesterday – all he sees are images, sounds, and fleeting emotions from another
life.

The man sees the reflection of a face in the bathroom mirror. He examines every wrinkle, every
hair, every nuance and detail as if this is his first moment alive, and the face that he sees is an
unfamiliar, alien one. Walking back into the bedroom, the man notices the rope sitting on the
end table. The man looks up at the ceiling. There is a long pipe that runs along parallel to the
walls, and runs out of the patio door, creeping around the walls to dig into the ground
somewhere.

He reaches the edge of the town and stops in his place. The man wasn’t supposed to have gone
this far, and now that he has, the man has no idea what to do next. If he steps into the town,
someone will inevitable see him, and he will have to make a decision whether or not to recognize
this verbal exchange. But he can’t go back to his room, only the prospect of hanging death
awaits him there. Time vanishes now, he stands still beneath the shadow of the hill – unsure
where to go to next.

A tourist bus passes by the man, leaving in its wake a thick dust cloud and the unnecessary noise
of a crowd, fading into the distance.

The man couldn’t get it up. The woman was trying as hard as she could to make the man
aroused.

“Do you want to stick your cock in my asshole?”

The man did not respond. He was laying on his back, and he was looking through the ceiling.

For an instant the man forgot where he was, he had forgotten his identity, and why he was here.

“No… you bend over – get on your stomach”. Said the man.

“You big man, you got fire”. She said.

The air was thick, hot and one would be stung instantly in the open sunlight. The afternoon
streets were empty, people were inside trying to stay cool.

The man was being kissed and caressed by the olive-skinned, slender woman. He could not
bring himself to rest, although he lay still, his mind was being bombarded with a cavalcade of
thoughts. This was it, he thought, this was the end of the line. There wasn’t enough pleasure to
keep him satisfied, and the pain – he had wanted the pain to last forever. If only he could stay in
that moment for all eternity: naked, sweating, next to his woman. No past, no yesterday or last
week, no last year, or next year. No plans, no voices – just the music of the ocean waves, the
wind moving through the trees. Warm sand on his feet, cool milk to quench his thirst, succulent
woman to feed his pain.

In that moment, the man was no longer who he thought he was. He had become something that
did not exist. Everything the man had lived through, he had erased, and only his animal instincts
propelled him forward.

No one knew his name, no one had ever seen him before. Of course in a town this small, it did
not take long for his face to become recognizable. This is what he wanted. A new life
unconnected to his past, where everyone he had met were characters in a story, figments of a
dream easily replaceable. The man had no past. He came from nowhere. He could be whoever
he wanted to be, and no one would question him.

All this he thought over as the woman nuzzled up against the man’s neck, moving her warm,
naked body closer to his.
It was night now. The tourists had left town, and all was quiet. The man walked down the dark
streets – seeing his way only by starlight. The man continued walking through the town until he
got to the other side.

The man climbs the hill, below him there is a giant bonfire in a cove on the beach. No one is
tending the fire, it’s all alone.

The man stumbles down the sandy hill, he walks up to the blaze.

The flames were high, the fire was hot. Life was as simple as that.

The man, wanting to hear his own voice, spoke, “That fire is hot.”

His voice sounded foreign to his ears. He didn’t want to speak, he didn’t want to think.

The man moved closer to the twelve-foot tall flames and became transfixed by its movements.

THE END