The tidewalker

She used to tell him that the moon brought lovers together. She’d say that its great actions in the heavens would draw souls together, magnetised by lunar cycles and destined to cling forever to the other.
He’d laugh, of course, and kiss her forehead and they’d both sigh and wish it were true. When he lost her – lost her to doubt, fear and perennial lust – he had an epiphany soon after.
He began to believe her idea, about the moon and the souls of young lovers. He began to imagine this intangible thread running always from him to her. It was now tightly drawn, and straining across a great distance of space and mind, but it existed all the same.
So he came to thinking that the flow of the tides could help him to find her; that the gravitational pull of the satellite moon would be the strongest at high tide. That if he were to stand on a beach, when the yearly tide was at its highest, there was a good chance she’d be there, on that same stretch of beach, searching for him too.
So there he was, on December 14th, 2008, his shoes filling with salt-water, his trousers sopping and him flinching in the chill. He was there, on a desolate winter’s beach, strolling through the surf, walking the tide.
Nobody else was on the beach that bitter day but, in the icy sting of the salt spray, a song came to him, shuffling forth from his memories.
It was a song she sometimes sang and it always made him smile. Somehow, he had lost this memory to time, and now the clawing December tide had returned it to him along with a clear visual memory of her face, fair and glowing, at Christmastime.
He stood there, tidewalking, for as long as his shivering body could stand the winter sea. And, all the while, he smiled.

On the waterfront

People think the waterfront's a peaceful place, somewhere to go and be contemplative. Somewhere to ease one's mind as you stare out at the lake, or the river or the sea you live near.
But really, we must know it's not as romantic as it first seems. I mean, we don't go there at night, down to the riverside, unless we're attempting something underhand, looking for trouble, looking for criminals.
There's no light, you see, down on the waterfront. Maybe the moon reflects on the churning waters but it barely helps you to see the edge, and it's oh so easy to step too far and slide into the soup.
I've watched in shadows as men have come to throw all the baggage of their lives over those black railings and into the tide. Sometimes these bags are still twitching.
And then dawn comes and you know the everyday will come and sweep the soot away once more, until evening. But even in the day, the sun beats down and flashes up hard from the glassy water, and the river's own vultures wait to pick you clean, razor wire tears around everything and hope either drains away back into the river or evaporates before your very eyes. And we all take a swim, before too long.