He taps the tips of his calloused fingers on the surface of the cabinet door above his head. He feels that need again. To see something sparkling, full of wonder and fright. He sniffs and swallows and stretches. He had nearly slept all morning and most of the afternoon. His kettle is just shy of squealing as he opens the cabinet and selects a sachet of earl gray tea.
As the steam rises, he holds his fingers above it. Not close enough to scald, but just enough to feel.
He yawns and sets his timer for six and a half minutes. If he doesn't, the earl gray will sit on his counter and go cold for hours before it occurs to him that he had made a cup at all. He musses his hair and takes notice of his crumpled shirt, and then scratches at the errant yet delicate exhibit of his overgrown facial hair.
Humming along to a tune he can only describe as having been nestled within his synapses by what is most divine and true, and therefore not belonging to him, he turns the pages of a magazine. Sleek photos cropped and lit to perfection. Colors and textures so visually disarming he wishes he could hide within them. Why live as a man when you could live as a work of art?
The timer blares. With the push of a button all is silent again. He readies his tea with raw sugar and coconut cream. His chilled hands welcome the heat of the cup within it. He breathes in the aroma and almost cries at this thought--the taste is almost never as good as the smell. He is kind to himself and allows this pang of sentimentality to pass through him so he can enjoy the flavor, even if it is unsatisfactory to his ego.
Large and glorious windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, display the ocean approximately one hundred and seventy nine feet below and three miles in front of his dwelling. To have lived any closer to the ocean would have broken his heart. Like other things, it is much easier for him to appreciate it from afar.
The span of distance is like the length of youth. You desire its coddling effects much later in life so you have something to turn to when the lights go out. At the same time, you just want to run back to it, naked, enraged, out of breath, ready to try things a little differently than before. That book is shut, though. He shakes his head, sets his tea down on the counter and picks up his binoculars.
"What have you got for us today, deep blue sea of mystery?"
He says this as if he and the ocean are great, old friends. He even grins at his own pleasantry. He adjusts the lenses so he can see the waves plummet back into themselves as if they were the heather blue wings of birds that never had to migrate because they were always home.
"That's a rare one of beauty," he remarks, letting his words fall to the floor like fine grains of sand released from his palm.
This wave is so immaculate he can feel it brush up against his stomach. He sucks in a breath and watches the spatter of light play and break upon the wave's crest. His eyes fight tears again, and he awaits the inevitable. The curl, the twist, the ache of dissolving into the infinite world. Back to the beginning. Back to your home. Back to the pain and comfort of knowing what you have always known yet were never told.
