Walking the salt-encrusted earth I look west and hear the call of seagulls flying above. It is the golden hour and the sky is turning orange and pink and the clouds above sparkle with flecks of lavender. I hear too grasshoppers churn through the shrubs and see little things: jack rabbits, roadrunners, and field mice scurrying to safety. An odd sensation lingers in the air. The smell of sulfur comes and goes. The water stands as if frightened by some apparition and I think to myself, yes, that’s it. A ghostly air exists all around as if years back a nuclear accident happened. Far into the distance visions of an almost apocalyptic past are visible. Remnants of life remain scattered throughout and somehow through this devastating beauty phantoms of life teem sporadically. The sea appears like a mirage amid a desert changed over the years, but there is very little there. An hour passes and the silence becomes overwhelming when I realize I’m alone. I become the sea, lonely and abandoned.
Years passed, before I braved myself to drive the abandoned coastline and watch the sun reflect bitterly its incandescent light. The highway here has also been left desolate. Not many people drive through it anymore. The years of endless quakes and heat caked the asphalt to liken scales like the reptiles that inhabit the desert. In the distance trucks bound east drive in due diligence trudging through the miles of space. They pass quickly like rays in the distance; one moment there and another gone.
I walk past the barnacle beach and hike up a peak protruding at the edge. It seems the highest point nearby. At the very top an old wooden bench stands decrepitly. I take a moment and sit looking out onto the flat canvass. Birds fly all around and the water refuses to stir. In the distance I see the ground—moss colored where the water receded. Trees deadened with time stand skeletal like monuments of the memory that was the sea once.
In my travels, I remember the elders recount memories of their childhood on the water, how they used to swim there once. They tell me too of the yacht club that was on the other side of the sea and how they’d have to wear boots because barnacles would cut their feet. Even in their voices a sadness looms as they remember the good times they’ve had there and at the same time look at what it’s become.
On Red Hill, where the docking station once hosted visitors, an old canoe wades in the mud. The water there’s receded so much it’s become impossible to use—even if the sea were clean. There’s a totality on this side of the sea. The red clay structures and vapor rising from the geothermal plants far off, appear to have been struck my some nuclear blast. A palpable eeriness descends on my soul so I drive away to another end, but fail to be appeased.
At one of the canals that pour into the sea, I see two men fishing in the distance. It seems strange they’d be there. I park away not wishing to disturb them and at last I find myself at the very end. A dozen docks stand frozen coming out of the mud. Where fishermen once sported patiently, a row of bridges stand statuesque as remnants of a once active community and it becomes the final straw. The end of my journey is near.
Footsteps clank the hollow planks as I walk into the fading sun. It’s twilight hour and my body is spent. I’ve seen too much loneliness. I’ve seen too much abandonment. I wonder—as I drive into the distance, when I’ll return. I wonder how things have changed and how I tumble in winds of time. Night descends and I draw down my window. The air on my face is cool and for a moment I think I’m near the beach but look steadfast onward; home.
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