The inescapable fact of the mater is that the deeper I get into my current conundrum the more I love the taste of alcohol. Clear liquor, brown liquor, it don’t matter much to me. I love it all.

Time was when I believed it loved me back.

I know better now.

Oh, yes, I most surely do know better now.

Although I must admit that out here alone in the beach house I formerly shared with my beauty—my one and only true love—there are nights when it makes a quite suitable companion.

The crane was back this morning…out there on the edge of the estuary behind the spit of land some fool chose as the location for his dream house.

That fool would be me.

A gust of salt-scented air momentarily lifts the hair out of my eyes only to redeposit it in an even more comical arrangement. I haven’t washed my hair for days. Haven’t washed much of anything for that matter. I just can’t seem to find the will to do much else but sit, stare and drink.

A man chases a small boy along the water line, pretending, much to the boy’s delight, that he can’t catch him. Cute, but it’d be better if the kid learns early on that sooner or later you will get caught.

Life will catch up to you.

Your past will catch up to you.

It’s just a matter of time.

You sweep things under the rug, thinking that it’s all over and done with, but eventually someone comes along, lifts up a corner and peers underneath.

And that’s a bad day…a really, really bad day.

I suppose if I’d had the sense God gave a squirrel I would’ve told her about it. Now? Well, she found out on her own, and now she’s gone. Gone as gone can be.

Raising the glass toward my lips I sense that it is curiously light. A cursory examination reveals a tragic lack of liquid contents, which I seek to remedy forthwith.

The bottle falls from my grasp, splattering its potent contents all over the weathered deck.

I raise my head, fully intending to rail at the heavens when…there on the sand walking slowly, yet purposefully toward me…I’d know that shape anywhere.

I am suddenly and alarmingly aware of my wretched appearance, that and the fact that her return doesn’t necessarily portend good news. She could just as easily kick me out as take me back.

I am counting on the latter.

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©2014 R.G. Ryan