Mud

I laid back in the clay and it enveloped me.  The oozing blue mud made its way under finger nails, behind ears, in the sweaty folds of my balsac and somehow under my flaubert.  It was cool.  It was liberating.  Despite my baggy trunks, I felt naked in the pool.  Three caramel colored Brazilian girls, half-in and half-out of the cerulean soup, were giggling between Portuguese whispers.  A couple shared a muddy kiss before pulling themselves out of the pool and chasing their libidos back into bushes that were clustered at the foot of the towering pink basalt cliffs.

Breading a cutlet, I rolled by muddy body in the sand.  The sparkling silica scattered the brilliant sun, pretty jewels set in the powdery blue of the drying mud.   As this shell hardened, I was again reminded of his plight.  My joints could easily push through this stiffening, but I embraced it.  I laid down, finding a place just beyond the reach of the surf.  My body--hardening, drying--teased the waves; I wanted them to wash me off but I was waiting.                                                               

Laying on my side, looking to the north, I retraced the quarter mile I had walked.  The scalloped curve of the land straddled the crashing waves on the one side and a sweltering salt marsh on the other.  That expanse was deserted but beyond, sheltered by the reef was a strand populated by vendors and vacationers, punctuated by umbrellas festively fighting with the midday sun.  And there, still sitting under the cart's brightly colored canopy was my companion, face obscured by the wide brim of his hat staring forward, his sunken posture suggesting the defeat and resignation of a character constructed by Tennessee Williams.  

There was guilt now measuring the distance I had traveled without him, the distance, the places that I would traverse where he would not be able to follow.  As was often the case, I was preoccupied with his mind, his experience.  What will it be like when these thoughts, these feelings, are my own?  Across the expanse, I could see the straw hat as it suddenly caught the sun.  Was he looking this way?  Was he anticipating my return?  In a single fluid movement I rose, ran, and dove into the surf.  With magical urgency, I emerged from the water clean and alive.