A Walk Alone On The Beach At Night

is faintly, pleasantly damp. Hard-packed, like soft concrete beneath your feet. The tide rolls in and out, in and out. Low ebb, A hundred feet of beach have opened since the swimmers. The sunbathers, tent pitchers, and cooler rollers have called it quits and split for home and hotels. Grouper basket market rate dinners. and sunburned baths and snoring. There was once a moon half full, like a crystal sugar bowl, no more. Stars fill the sky, but there is little light to see by.

Three small fires burn silently at even intervals along the long frontage of the resort, like signal mountains surrounded by lawn chairs. Container ships line the horizon. Six across. blinking like grounded stars atop the black water. In and out, in and out. The sand is wet and firm. The meager light of the resort disappears behind the dunes, and soon...

The orange glow of its ambience is gone amidst the tall grass. Only the lighthouse remains, across the channel to the north, though soon that too is gone, save for the beam. sweeping the sky above the dunes every 15, 20 seconds. Shuttered restaurants, bike, kayak, paddleboard rentals, closed for the night. All cease. In and out.

in and out. The sand makes for easy walking down near the foam remnants of the white tide. Farther up where it is dry, it is trudging going. The beach is straight and wide, onward. The beach is unchanging. The interior it guards is primeval dark. In and out, in and out. The only change, the rise and fall of the wind, stirring the palm fronds to life.

the only indication that there may be something else, anything besides the sand and tide and the indifferent stars. On and on goes the beach, in and out the grasping waters. Jellyfish. hard like human flesh, litter the beach. If they could glow again, they would form a constellation nine miles across. The container ships move apace, so that they seem not to move at all.

To where? Forward? Onward? The phases of the night are not as plain to the eye as the days, but they can be felt by the body. The island flora merge in one dark silhouette. darker than the vacuum of the night sky, standing sentinel over that vast strip of sand. In a place like this, any abnormality is a threat. At some point, the footprints stopped.

The treadmarks ceased. As if all were raptured on the spot, an unspoken line in the sand, none could or had crossed. The virginal sand stretches on and on, just the same, in and out.

there were faint lights ahead at one point in the sky above the foliage no more it is hard to mark distance a thought fluttering in from nowhere and leaving as easily do not go in the cave little tide pools divert the path though the sand around is still firm and slaps wetly with each step in the dark forms blend and merge disappear and reappear

It is impossible to tell if anything is anything. Onward. Stop. Something emerges from the water, breaks with the sameness. Or... does it? Does it? Crawls, walks? Does it? too dark to be sure of anything. The stars, the ships, moving like a procession of lost souls out in the unknown, the unknowable, heads down, feet shuffling in hypnotic and unbreakable rhythm.

The beam of light swings over the dunes, through the grass, across the sky, and disappears. In and out. In and out. What is standing there? Is something standing there? In the surf, or just beyond it? in and out, in and out, foaming and foaming around its feet, a red light in the sky out over the ocean, closer than a star or a planet, burning like a flare, but immobile.

The lighthouse beam passes overhead. It's impossible to find the shape again, in the surf, in the darkness. If it was there, if it wasn't. Seaweed, or... The sensation of being watched, though. is hard to shake or worse yet studied in and out in and out warm night easy breeze any night now the turtles will arrive to lay their eggs so says the signage at the resort, which must be at least a 30-minute walk back by now. From here, there appears to be no human presence on the island whatsoever.

The red light is still hanging in the sky above the procession of ships. The air smells different, wild, alive, teeming even, pungent and foul and rotting. and rich according to the map there are beach houses all lined up in a long row in the dark just beyond the vegetation everyone out of town or sleeping or sitting up in the dark

listening to the roar of the insects and the surging in and out of the sea. Bleached white branches and trunks of long dead trees, like craggled skeletal fingers, rise bending and arcing out of the sand, twisting and turning in gnarled and tangled knots, grown thicker and more nonsensical with each step, plunging at random points back into the sand. washed clean and worn smooth by the tide, in and out, in and out. The web grows denser till it is nearly a wall, and each trunk

Thick as a boa constrictor, seems to be slowly moving in the periphery, sliding in and out and amongst, tightening a hundred thousand woody knots. In and out, in and out. Do not go in the cave. The wall begins to thin. The branches disentangle. The whiteness of the wood again becomes the exception rather than the rule. The field tapers to a single little nub.

poking out of the sand, which each new wave of foam threatens to bury. There are little tidal pools now and then that all look the same, and no landmarks in any direction. The red light has gone from the sky, and the lights of the ships are smaller. They've turned from the coast toward the open ocean. And soon they disappear. A tall ridge rises along the back of the beach and runs toward the shoreline, narrowing, funneling everything toward the water, which is breathtakingly warm, not hot, warm.

rushing in around the ankles, and just a little pushy, a little insistent with the tide. There's real power there. The dune rises farther and becomes stony, draped with vines.

and overgrown with trees, and cuts inland, forming a grotto. And here is the moon, a sliver in the sky, shining on the inlet. At the bottom of the cliff, at the back of the bay, an even darker darkness that might be a cave, in and out, in and out, like black bathwater, one long line of surging frothing foam after another, glowing and unbroken.

dutifully, relentlessly storming the beachhead. At the center of the bay, the bottom of the bowl, accessible by a narrow spit of sand, only available at low tide. The bugs are as loud as the sea, some acoustic anomaly of the rock walls. The tide is more violent at the far end of the inlet. There are jagged rocks stacked along the shore.

The end of the beach. The lighthouse beam swings past, and an image flashes of a people stood shoulder to shoulder, end to end, atop the cliff, ringing the inlet, perhaps 50 in number. But it is only that, an image, gone as fast as it appeared. It is hard to imagine that the resort is still there. It is hard to imagine that there is electricity on this island.

or concrete, or another living person, it is far easier to imagine pterodactyls. The sky is so deep, and the stars so numinous, it is hard to imagine anything else existing anywhere. An empty planet. The weight of the emptiness is crushing. Makes it hard to breathe. Nevertheless, onward. Why? Never mind that. For how long? Forevermore, if needed.

If needed for what? Never mind that. It is a simple need, the simplest need at the base of it all, stronger by orders of unquantifiable magnitude than any other. Survive. Why? Don't ask such questions. To what end? You know what end. Keep walking. It will be here soon enough. When it is, you will wish you time to walk only a few meaningless steps farther. You'll sell your fortune.

for but a few steps farther. The cave beckons. There's no sense denying it. Across the shallows, where the sand is ribbed, the water narrows to a stream and enters. In the entryway, it sounds like the inside of a washing machine, some acoustic quirk funneling all the ocean's roar forward toward the mouth and tumbling it around against the water.

But soon it stops. Some 50, 60 feet in, the cave takes over. Just the trickle of the stream, echoing, echoing. What meager light there was from the outside world. disappears after 30 at 80 even the dot of the exit is gone totalizing blackness covering you like paint a world in which light was never even introduced A darkness which has never been broken, never known anything other. Not a particle, not for a moment. Filling your lungs and veins and stomach and all the empty cavities of your body.

like paint. The echoing trickle, the only thing grounding you, the only remaining signal that any of the old material world still exists. the only thing keeping you from floating off into a formless abyss. The tunnel is straight, dead straight. The stone begins to brush at shoulders, then bump, then a haircut.

the way almost seems to narrow each encounter with the walls finding them just an inch or two closer than expected then there they were a few seconds earlier ducking The cave pinches down, the stream to a piddle, crouching, the air more rare, crawling, the tunnel tightening now with every step, breathable oxygen in scarce supply.

or a simple case of folded and compressed lungs. Maybe both. But this can't be the end, can it? The water, little drops spurting up here and there out of the sand, continues. Shimmying now, sand breaking apart in wet clumps. The walls close in all around, squeezing, the fist of the earth gripping firmer.

You emerge headfirst into a jungle. A million smells swirl into a pungent miasma. There are bugs, and the air is warm and damp and heavy. The soil is alive. every inch of the earth squirming and oozing and gesticulating. At every moment, seeping between toes, the bugs howl, broad waxy tennis racket leaves scrape and waver. Somewhere a bird calls. A silent point of light in the sky above begins zipping around, disappearing and reappearing behind a thousand nodding fronds. Suddenly,

Straight ahead, perhaps, 40 feet, there are yellow eyes burning, a golden-patterned pelt behind near-invisible, amidst the shifting layers and densities of shadow and jungle matter. Cat's eyes. He puts one massive paw forward. Stalking. The bugs and birds recede. He takes another step. Every movement is deliberate. Nothing is wasted, save maybe a lustful twitch of his whiskers.

Suddenly more eyes appear, deep in the jungle to the left, quickly growing, racing nearer, the low mechanical hum of a car engine. A moment later, a pink and white tailfin Cadillac. blows by, and when it's gone, the cat is nowhere to be seen. There was a road between you, two lanes of paved blacktop and gravel shoulder, yellow painted lines right down the middle.

The red taillights, minuscule, disappear over a distant hill, heading west, according to the constellations. Far enough down the road, the trees begin to thin and recede. and the grass along the side of the road. Bermuda shows evidence of having once been trim and manicured. Something looms ahead, blotting out a piece of the sky. almost as tall as the trees themselves. A giant woman, a blonde titan, her white skirt ballooning, bedroom eyes and red lips mid-laugh, eternally knowing.

Another reigns some two hundred or so feet farther down the route, a fat man in pinstripes and a ball hat, frozen with his bat held over his shoulder at the denouement of his swing. A cigar the size of a canoe juts proudly from between his teeth. Then the jungle ends and buildings begin. Irish eyes, Irish pub, big game sports bar and grill.

utilitarian gray boxes, all empty and lifeless. The tiles on the floor, the plastic chandeliers, the tufting on the stools, all so twee, so considered, so just so. like a police training facility retrofitted into a functional town, at the far end of the district, in the hinterlands of the development, where the bugs are as loud as the ocean on the beach. The pink Cadillac.

rests in the parking lot of a motor hotel. There are weeds growing between the cracks in the asphalt, and the door to room 14 is open. There is little furniture left inside. a lamp in the corner without a shade, a headboard. There is a large, repulsive stain on the carpet in the middle of the room, a tarry black. In the right light, it almost tricks the eye.

almost looks like it's breathing the noise underfoot would be ghastly there is grime in the grout of the bathroom tiles the mirror is scratched beyond lustre some pipes poking out of the wall from a distance the bath-tub appears completely tarnished up close it is alive thriving and convulsing full of a thousand cockroaches farther west farther from town there are more cars

Dozens arranged in an expanding series of semi-circles, all facing a screen towering seventy feet in the air. They all contain wax drivers, waiting for the show. Some wear hats. Most have ties and jackets. Some cars have fins. Others do not. Someone has spray painted a dripping red swastika on the blank white field of the screen. Waiting. Waiting.

as patient as stone, undeterrable, their attention indivisible. But something is stirring, disturbing the tropical air which off the beach weighs like a wet blanket. A steady galloping whirring coming from under the big screen, from a long, narrow eye-height slit in the concrete bunker supporting it. The bulbous, glassy eye of a camera lens.

the film spinning away in the big blimp behind. The rest of the bunker is dark, but it doesn't look like there's anyone in there. The jungle encroaches, threatens to swallow the screen.

The road continues west, but all other signs of civilization cease. The concrete deteriorates, and after a mile, or maybe more, it begins to break up. until it seems that soon it will no longer even constitute a cohesive road. Soon that familiar roar returns, and then the route opens up to the sky, the horizon, and cuts off at a cliff.

Gravel and chunks slide down its sheer face. The ocean waits below. Back in town, down a different avenue, there stands an imposing neoclassical hall. Red brick with white columns. The stately live oaks in front, shrouded in whispering Spanish moss, the wind humming old, old tunes. The double doors are open. Enter. Inside is a theater.

with plush, crushed red velvet seats. The moonlight is enough to see the last few rows. Be seated. Patience. Some great machinery whirring in the darkness, down where the stage ought to be. grinding like tectonic plates. A gaslight in a sconce, on the far side of the auditorium, bursts to life. Then another, on the near side, and another, and another, in no hurry.

The auditorium lit, those lamps to the rear dim, and the curtain is swept aside. The stage is wide, and some forty or fifty men stand silhouetted in single file across its width. motionless, waiting. At last, another light, spotted on one figure at the left flank of the assembly, wearing a powdered wig. He opens his eyes. Blinks to life, straightens his shoulders, and faces around to address the audience. A robot. He introduces himself as Thomas Jefferson.

the third president of the United States. From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of patriots. He preens left, then right, then retires back to his resting state. Another light on the right flank. Abraham Lincoln. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

He gestures thrice to the crowd and rests. Another light. Another president. One at a time, in no apparent order, each introduces himself, and each delivers a statement. The stage is skirted by stars and stripes banners. The middle remains conspicuously dark until all others have been revealed, all save one, conspicuously.

when those lights in the center come up a tableau the timber wall of a fort a few indicative trees several figures and another powdered wig towering over them all with a waxen face recognizable to anyone who ever held a U.S. dollar. A little flowing banner carved out of wood at the top of the stage, above his head. carried by a pair of whittled doves. It reads, Conodocarius. Surveyor and Lieutenant Colonel of the Virginia Militia, George Washington.

May 28, 1754. The first shot of the First World War. The day when America started on the path to becoming the America we know and love today. England and France both held colonial claims on the North American continent, but not all colonies are created equal. While the French maintained several key cities like New Orleans and Montreal,

their interest in the interior lay mostly in fur trapping and trading with the native populations. The English Americans to be in 20 odd years wanted land and they wanted as much of it as they could lay their hands on. It might seem funny to us today but look at an original map of Virginia. Much of it will be familiar but you'll see that they also claimed all of the land going west.

They didn't even know what was over there. A Virginia shaped track stretching as far as the imagination would allow. And the French were building forts near Pittsburgh at the forks of the Ohio. which Virginia considered to be Virginia, beneath the crown. The future president, then a headstrong 22-year-old, was dispatched to tell the French to scram.

Isn't it interesting how knowing the ending colors the beginning? He eventually found a diplomatic envoy camped in the Pennsylvania woods with a letter telling him to scram. He was in New France. He opened fire. Now, England and France weren't at war. But don't tell old George that. Think about it. A whole new continent, wide open, in the middle of the woods, hundreds of miles into the wilderness, just waiting for whoever can take it. One of the other figures in the tableau whirs to life.

Uh-oh. Look out. Here comes the half-king. The figure, shirtless, dark, long-haired, raises a tomahawk over his head. The final figure in the arrangement. clothed in a French uniform, cowers. Red lights flash. The blade comes down. The lights dim, and when they return, the animatronic Indian has his hands inside the skull of the Frenchman. whose brains are visible. He motions as if he is washing them. Half Kang. In early America, scalps were a real hot commodity.

Every scout meant there was more land available for sale and speculation. The lights dim again. The Frenchman and half-king depart. A smaller curtain drops over the backdrop. And a moment later, when it is lifted, the scenery is changed. The fort wall replaced by wigwams burning in papery stage fire. Now, let's hear him speak in his own words. I cannot tell a lie I am George Washington Destroyer of Villages

His mouth moves to its own incantation. It matches his speech only in approximate length. Snaggled, mismatched teeth from many mouths. His top canines are fangs. They jut out just past his lip. They're bleeding, little trails of blood from each leading down past his lips, framing his chin. The other animatronics all move forward in unison. clapping mechanically, swiveling their heads from left to right, never quite achieving eye contact with one another, smiling at everything they see.

I cannot tell a lie. I am George Washington, destroyer of villages. I cannot tell a lie. I am George Washington, destroyer of villages. I cannot tell a lie. I am George Washington. Destroy your head.

side in the near distance, the Cadillac is racing, growing more distant by the second. It sounds like it is doing laps. An idea to consider. An image. the open doorway at the back of the theater, a half dozen rows back. Doesn't it feel like there's someone standing there, a second audience member watching the show? But of course there isn't. The door slowly closes and latches shut on its own. The house lights come up. The animatronics come to rest.

Attention, this theater is now locked down for your safety. There is an open door in the base of the stage and stairs leading down. Please proceed to shelter at your earliest convenience. Warning, you may hear a banging at the doors like this. If you do, please, for your safety and the safety of those around you, ignore the banging. Watch your step and enjoy the show. The stairs end in a small, featureless concrete room.

there is a long narrow eye-height slit on the far wall and a faded little yellow cartoon above it wearing protective goggles the cadillac again almost but more so and farther away Winding away high in the sky. A flash, brighter than anything that has ever been. Blinding white light fills the room for a moment. Outside the slit, the land and sea.

are illuminated as if by a great too near star. A towering ground cloud at the far end of the geography the size of a mountain, a rising billowing stack. A furious rush of jet fuel air topples the jungles the cloud expands and expands please proceed a door is open at the rear of the bunker in the other room there is carpet

semi-plush and beige the walls are cream and well lit the ceiling is drop it's the size of a conference room without a table there's a big potted rubber plant in the far corner and a few abstract paintings on the wall, big soothing swaths of inoffensive color. The door closes behind you. There is no knob or handle on this side.

up and down the narrow hall there don't appear to be any others nor windows but the air smells pleasantly fragrant if stale like someone else's memory of a lilac bush And there is a couch.