Forecast

The sea was perfectly still, a silken peach lull over the slow currents drifting to shore. We looked at the sunset: vast, quiet, setting fire to the cliffs across the water. August is impossibly beautiful like that. What is it about summer, she said as her baby fell asleep in my arms, that makes it so happy and sad at the same time? Her husband stared cynically at the last returning sailboats and said, That is the essence of what it is to live where we do. In the life of summer lies the promise of approaching death. It is the same, every year.

I went to bed alone in the dark cabin, the sea black and ominous outside. The peaceful quiet suddenly more a sign of abandonment than of urban escape. I slept a heavy sleep, again, filled with strange dreams impossible to interpret. Come morning, the sky had clouded over, meeting the ocean in a pale shade of grey. I pace impatiently, wait for impending rain.

Wait for the summer to die.