The Great Weightlifting

In the most perfect sense, it was the time of my life.


Swinging in the jubilant oceans of sleep and waking with ebullience spilling out over the days that led up to the shining moment when I would step out of the light and bury myself in my work.

I worked for months on the novel, toiling away in the midnight flame of my candle catching reflections of my abject scribblings.

The beautiful maid beside me gave me a solid foundation from which I would never doubt my place in the world again.

I saw the end of the tunnel, saw myself old and grey with children, the rabid seed of my indifference destroyed in a perfumed cloud of self reverence and cherished affection.

The characters spewed out of me as I cast their trajectories headlong into each other as they screwed and drank their way through three, four hundred pages of dialogue and plotlines.

On the weekends, with her away from work, we'd drive out to the beach house in the isolated chill of winter. With a fantastic sense of emptiness looming in the sky, the lines and words, syllables and stanzas soared out of my fevered brain and we’d run across the beach with dog following closely behind. With invisible mist breathing over us, we’d run down pacific city beach diving after a bright blue Frisbee.

I spent more and more time at the beach house, alone more often than not, and after a particularly prosperous day of prose I walked out on the ramshackle deck and saw a bright pink bikini dancing through the waves. It seemed to float on air in the way it snagged itself to the crab trap 500 meters from my gaze. Intrigued, I made my way down dunes, approaching the lapping shore with my salty hand habitually stretched across my brow blocking the invisible sunlight.

It had been days since I heard another’s voice, so when It blasted into my right ear, I almost fell down, such was I overtaken by the rich baritone of the barrel-chested man who wore loud Bermuda shorts and spoke with a clipped New England Accent.

“It’s a beautiful day aint it?” he concluded, shades pitched up at the sheep’s wool colored sky. His skin was bright orange, had a pallor that jumped right out at you, declaring health and radiance with a megaphone like subtlety.

“Yeah.” Wits now recovered, my eyes danced up to the sky and I shrugged my shoulders. “But what’s with the bikini out there”

“I’ve been here for three days, and the fishing just grand!” With no fishing gear on him to speak of, his eyes shifted behind his bright green ray bans.

I felt the nausea hit me as the silence between us persisted. The echo of the seagulls rang through me as I smelled the salt in the air and caught a glimpse of the bright red stains that faintly covered his outstretched hand. “I’m Tim from Massachusetts.” he finally managed. “What do you guys do around here for fun?”