The sun has been coming on for a while now and it doesn’t seem like it is going to stop anytime soon. My leg is in bad shape, I haven’t been able to feel it since noon yesterday. I can’t move it, either; I try and nothing happens. The sand had cooled off during the night but is heating up again in the sun and it is sticking to my legs where the water had lapped around them when the tide had come up. It’s back down again now but the salt from the water is still on me, and I feel like an animal that has been seasoned and is ready to be thrown on the fire. The sand is becoming uncomfortably hot now and the sun is right in my face and I can feel myself starting to sweat all over. When I lift my arms my hands tremble slightly and I can’t stop it. I wish the tide had taken me with it last night. It would have been nice to float for a while and try to make it to daybreak when the sun hits the water and it flare’s up all golden and shimmering and I’d try to get caught up in the middle of it and then the letting go would be as easy as it can get. I wish I had kissed Maria. There aren’t too many things that I regret, but I wish very much I had kissed Maria.
The stars last night were better than I’d ever seen them. The sky was perfectly clear and very black, there was no light from a city to get in the way of the darkness and the moon was sickle shaped. The stars stood out strongly in the thick, hard darkness and I had never seen so many so clearly and everything seemed to ease off as I watched them. I started feeling very small and very unimportant after looking at them for some time and it was a comforting feeling. I wondered what stardust tasted like. I spent the night drawing in the stars. I drew people I knew, things I’d seen, things I’d done, things I’d wanted to do but never had the chance to. I drew Maria’s face over and over until the pictures blended together and I forgot what she looked like and everything about her, and all I was left with was the faint idea that I wanted to kiss her.
Small crabs are jumping all around me. They are gray and almost transparent with big eyes that are like the eyes small girls put on their rag dolls that are all black iris with very little white around them. The jumping is constant and coming from everywhere. I must look very big to them. I want to catch one but can’t because my hands are shaking badly now and my arms feel very sloppy. My leg looks worse than ever with the sun on it. The skin has gotten all shiny on top. It looks like it has been filled with water or some other liquid, and I think that if I poked it with something sharp it would burst like a balloon. There are birds circling overhead. They are right in the sun and I can’t tell what kind of birds they are but they are big and hardly flapping their wings and circling slowly. Everything is quiet except for the waves on the shore but they are small waves and not very loud. The sun is making me feel tired. The crabs have stopped their jumping. All of me is shaking. The birds are starting to come lower and I can see the stars in the sun and everything is easing off again. The birds are coming lower, and lower, and one lands right beside me and the stars go away and everything comes back on heavily.
The bird is watching me and I am watching it, and up close I can see it is not a very pretty bird but it has sharp, intelligent eyes that hold a lot of pride. The bird stands up very straight, and keeps its chin up, too, and it’s wings folded beautifully by its sides. I don’t think it thinks very much of me at all at the moment. A slight breeze is coming by and it ruffles the bird’s feathers, which only makes it look more impressive. The other birds come down too now and the first one starts picking at my busted leg and I don’t feel it but I can hear the skin breaking and see the blood start coming. All the birds are joining in at the same time and the stars are coming back and everything is easing off with more conviction now and more and more of them are coming, all tiny and purely white. I can’t see anything except the stars and everything keeps easing off further and further, and I suppose this is as good a way as any to die.
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