TRACK 2

The Kiss

In the distance her slim naked legs stand out over the flat background of the perfectly empty dunes. To the west the summer sun hangs low in the sky, casting long shadows on the white sand. She sits still at the top of the dunes, the dark silhouette of her profile stretching all the way to the edge of the beach where the sand gleams with the surf expiring over the surface and retreating hastily. Occasionally, with the regularity of the tide but at far longer intervals, a dark dot in the middle of the ocean begins its approach, accelerating with the wind and the shoreline. She remains still, unmoved, feet flat on the sand, legs folded halfway up, arms around the knees, back hunched ever so slightly, head sheltered by her gray hoodie. The hazy dark smudge gains sharpness by the second, acquires volume, transforms rapidly into a human shape, with legs (flexed), and arms (outstretched), and an upper body (taut), and a face, a man’s face, sunburned, bristly, strained. The surfer races on his board heading straight for the shore, overtaking whitecap after whitecap in a frenzy of bravado. The girl moves not a finger, doesn’t even flinch, only the thin white wire of the headphones in her ears dangling in the late afternoon wind. The surfer skirts the very edge of the beach, shifts the angle of his kite, takes a leap and lingers for a moment, hanging in the air, pulling himself higher, closer to the kite, farther against the wind. As he faces away from his muse, his shadow meets her as the wave that catapulted him into the skies scurries beneath him back to the endless body of the Atlantic. He summersaults his way back across the bay. She bobs her head. I keep walking.

Want more? Go straight to TRACK 1, TRACK 3, and TRACK 4, or go back to B-SIDES, explore the potential COVERS of the book, or discover the PLAYLIST.