He lives with his father on the coast of a nation that no longer matters to anyone now. Together they are alone. And as much as this young man wished it were otherwise, he hardly even still has his father.
It has been seventeen years since that fateful day. The young man, at that time a very young boy, looked out over the water into a red sky. Shining like a beacon in the evening was a great cloud. A shadow with glimmering edges, calm and flying over the peaceful sea as the boy listened to the waves wash in and out, in and out, in and out.
The cloud looked like heaven. The cool sand between each of his toes felt like heaven.
His father's arms around him felt like heaven. The pound of his father's heart felt like thunder.
The boy pointed to the cloud, "Look papa, look at it. It's an angel, papa."
The boy's father held him tight, "No angel. No angel."
--
He's trapped under an empty blue sky. He's trapped by the fear of what he might see there.
The young man digs in the sand. He has been digging in the sand for ten years now. He is digging to other side of the world. The place where things are good. The place where people are happy. His father stopped digging. His father stopped digging a while ago. Now he sits, looking into the ocean. Now he only moves his eyes to follow the waves. In and out. And out. And out.
--
It was beautiful. It was an angel. A great, delicate angel. Fire trickled from its mouth and lit up the hills in the distance. The fire danced in front of the boy's eyes, and the noise. The deafening thunder.
"Holiday," said the boy, "It is holiday."
"No holiday."
--
"So many holes. They all go deep. They go as deep as they will go. Deep into darkness, deep into loneliness, so far down that you can feel the other side of the world screaming to open for you. Then they stop. You don't stop. They stop. They make you stop, because they won't let you through. No one will let you through. So you stop."
The young man digs.
--
It was too loud. The noise was too loud, it drilled through the boy's head. He didn't like it anymore. Too loud. Too bright. The party had lasted too long.
"Let's go home, papa. Let's sleep now. Let's go home."
His father held him close, trembling. "No home."
--
Nothing. Never anymore. Not even "no." Just alone. Forgotten. And this young man digs to a place where he can change his memories. And he's beginning to wonder whether he still believes that that place exists.
Once an angel came to him. Men aren't meant to look upon angels.
"Angels abandoned us because we are weak. Because we are worthless. Because we are each less than a grain of sand. They left with the tide. Then they came back to drown us. Out. And out and out."
The young man digs.
