The beach in the memory was sunny, sandy, a pleasant squish under his feet, comforting in a way he couldn’t explain then or now.
This was a walk, he reminded himself, though somehow he was flat on the ground, and the ground wasn’t sand, it was rocks.
There was sun somewhere through the haze, but gray had won the sky and was building statues of itself.
Engraved on the flask, his initials.
If this had been a game show, if he had to ring in quickly to answer, he couldn’t tell you what booze was inside.
The tastes had blurred together, become neutral, his initials on the flask an embarrassment.
Kevin Parman closed his eyes. He had drunk the sun from the sky.
He owed the gloom, the cold, the light rain a favor for chasing everyone from the beach. So there was no one to harass him, mock him.
This didn’t seem to be a day for decisions, and decisions had never been something he handled with grace, or ease.
The beach had gotten cold, rocky, shitty, without his permission.
There was no way he was sleeping, just in some lowered state of consciousness, when he thought he saw a light, a quick flash through his closed eyelids.
He slowly opened his eyes.
A solitary boat lolled in the water.
Flame shimmied from it.
Kevin saw human shapes.
Kevin saw real humans, in hoodies.
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