text: This is you. You are standing still. The smell of the sea breeze scratches at your nose. The salt mixes with the drying algae and the burning refuse. You are looking in the distance, at the gray bridge. Cars are stuck there, and you cannot tell if they are moving forwards or backwards. The waves crash in front of you. You drag your gaze around. There is trash everywhere - plastic bags, pieces of plaster walls, bricks, metal rods. A box of flares is still lit under some sand and gives off a sulfurous, oozing smoke. A pile of driftwood is ablaze downwind. You cannot smell it but you see the people gathered around it. Your heavy coat is wrapped tightly around you. The cool wind whips it around you like a cape. You used to enjoy superheroes. Capes and leather and magic, somehow coalesced into something more real for you because you used to wear shirts with their logos. Everything was possible then. You wrap the coat tighter around you and stop it from flapping. The horizon is a flat line in front of you. From the street you could see a sailboat, but it is gone now. The water is the same color as the sky, and it looks sick. The gray is everywhere. Your wife used to have blue eyes. Like the sea. Both are gray now. Up the hill behind you, a woman walks by. She is talking on her phone. Her laughter rings loudly and its echo resonates in your head. It pulls you out of the grayness. You look down. Your old work boots are dirty and scuffed. Sand has pooled in the creases. You lift your feet and shake the sand loose. She always said you couldn't keep yourself clean. Just like your father. As you bend down to remove the last grains you see a rock buried in the sand. You dig it out with a pleased grunt. This will fit. You put it in your coat pocket. It does fit. Its weight reassures you. Next to you is the old carcass of a destroyed boat. No one bothered to pick it out of the rubble. Its flank is split open like a beached whale. You used to think that you would conquer the world with her. Now, she is gone, and the world is gone as well. You are left with nowhere to go and nothing to see. You pick up an armful of rocks and put them in your pockets. The people are gone from the fire. It is still going strong, but not for long. Without people to care for it it will fade from existence. Only its bleached bones will remain, like elephant tusks in an forgotten graveyard. Your hands are cold and cracked. They are white and red and blue and purple and black. They are not used to this temperature. They hold each other and support the cold. They run each other for comfort. The waves crash around you. You are numb. Cold and tired. Sick and grieving. You close your eyes. You know that the water should be cold, but it only feels like a soft embrace. You breathe slowly. You try to match the rythm of the waves. As they come to you and wash over your head, you sink. The grayness pulls you down. You know you should be feeling bad but as you sink you can only feel peace and calmness. Some waves disturb you but you ignore them and go deeper. You have closed your eyes and can only see darkness, but somehow there is darker blackness creeping in the corners. The nothingness spreads over your head and mind and soon you are nothing but the tingle in your extremities. You open your eyes. You dump the stones in the dry, cool sand at your feet. The bridge is still an ashy gray, set against the gray clouds. It is still full of cars. You think they might be the same cars as before. Still moving in no particular direction. You shake your head and curse at yourself. You think about the fire, dying as it is, without anyone to fan and feed the flame. It is still burning its fuel, even if no one is watching it. No one celebrates it but the white bones burn on. You walk back up the hill and climb in your car. You drive away.