Peace

A tired sun, its warmth feebler, its person easier to look at, like a spent, self possessed celebrity, prepares to smile at the camera for the final few moments before turning in for the day, drowning into the far side of the ocean. A single, long red orange stream, glistening and blurred, makes its way from it, through the grey sea, to the beach; unique for each grain of sand. It presents the sun with a tall, sparkling and altogether flawed reflection of itself.

The full moon, having shown up for work early, has spent the last hour, grudging the presence of its brighter counterpart and awaiting the appearance of its entourage of stars. The ocean pays scant heed to its presence yet, aware that the oversight will be made up for later, in the high tides of that night.

It is strange how the mighty, seemingly imperturbable, waters respond to the moon; rising higher as the moon gradually unmasks itself. Lusting for an object so far away, so unattainable and so miniscule. It is the way of the world’s mightiest creations. The Oceans. The Mountains. Man.

The sand stretches forever on either side of me. A great, powerful expanse of granules, united together to defend the land from the ocean’s onslaught. Seated on the sand, close to the ocean, I can feel the tide coming in. The waves, with each passing minute, die nearer me. Soon they will reach my outstretched legs, forcing the shells and the sands into the gap between my toes, before snatching some back again with that tingling feeling of the earth moving beneath me. In time, they will move beyond me.

The failed writer put down his pen, closed his diary and sighed. He looked up into the fading ocean, abandoning his search for a peace that was never his, waiting for a peace that would tonight be his.