The snails are big as my hand. Raindrops rest on the roses, the onions are in bloom, bees are sleeping on the puffs. The earth is soft. It rained, then it stopped. Someone in the priest house is watching a documentary. From the island through the window of the thatched roof house to a Vietnamese archipelago. Soil mixed with sand. Somewhere beyond the rustling of the leaves and the soft hopping of the hares, I hear the sea. Fine sugar, shallow waters, easy waves, mud. The scars on my left side become less sensitive to touch as time goes by. The shadow the monster casts gets shorter and shorter until it disappears under its feet. There is no need to talk; we've thought about each other for so long, we've turned transparent.
The neon sign at the repurposed warehouse flickers at the corner. The daughter of the pizza man, her big spider tattoos, her awkward hair, her many clacking rings, she's out to deliver food. We used to go to school together. She sees me across the low stone fence while unlocking the pizza car. Blushing cheeks, not a day has passed, she smiles:
"Oh it's you! Hasn't it been a minute!"
"Yes, it has."
"Back home for a while?"
"Just for a bit."
"How is it, to come back, and then to leave?"
"Goodbyes come easy."
"They mean less and less, don't they?"
"Yes, they do."
"You don't know how it is to stay."
"No."
"Do you miss home when you're away?"
"I do."
"That's what staying and leaving have in common. The missing. There is a lot of that. Remembering and forgetting and remembering again. Missing, wondering if I'm missed the same way. I miss you as well, you know. Sometimes if I happen to drive by your street for a delivery, I see you and B. sitting by the big tree, like in the old days. A memory and a dream at the same time."
"Better hurry. Your wares are gonna get soggy."
"Right. Off I go. Give a flower from your mom to mine."
"Any preference?"
"One of the puffy ones."
"Will do."
"See you."
Motherless boy, motherless girl. Life and the absence thereof. The patchy sunlight on the moss in the forest, between the trees, shivering alive. The ripples in this sea can only be seen for the shade. The stones aren't sharp with shine anymore. It has been many years since they were, but oh how they cut back then, and how dull they are now. I linger until the last light. I take a nice allium puff, keep the stalk long, and give it to her mom. A rabbit looks at me with a wide eye. She's here, in the film of tears that coats the bead. Salt in the water, a night that never turns into day, floating dust, the sound of the swaying pebbles underwater in the shallows. Waves appear, roll and fade, appear, roll and crash. I surrender all my parts, the sea is tender when you don't keep fighting it.
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