One

It is possible to enjoy a meal at a table for one. I shouldn't need to have a book or a companion for the food to taste good. The cuisine should stand up on its own merit. Sushi can. Believe me. I've counted on it before.

The Japanese have mastered food presentation -- the small plates, ergonomic cups and bowls -- its art more than sustenance. The tapered chopsticks are akin to sexy legs as they stretch on forever into kissable points.

I close my eyes and allow the tuna to melt on the tip of my tongue. I squeeze the wooden tips together and grip a slice of ginger so thin it must have been carved with a razor blade. With a gentle stir, the settling miso realigns into a soup once more and I drink it like a soothing cup of cocoa.

It's heaven.

Cold

The tea was cold, having sat untouched for hours while I typed. One word after another. One sentence followed the previous. Until I'd delete it all and start again.

I sipped the tea, then spit it back into my cup. I'd steep another pot, maybe after I hit a thousand words. Maybe eight hundred. Five would barely be work. God damn, they just wouldn't come.

I saved my unchanged file for the seventeenth time -- gotta love prime numbers -- and paced around the house. The curtains weren't closed properly so I straightened them. The washing machine had finished so I transferred the clothes to the dryer. The phone showed two recent calls so I scrolled through the call log until the blinky-green light turned off.

My watch must have been wrong. Had to have been less than an hour since I typed a meaningful sentence of text. Had to.

The phone rang. I should've let the machine take the call, but I could afford another ten minutes. My father. He wanted me to bring him chips. I told him no, his blood pressure was too high. We argued. I ultimately agreed to bring him popcorn.

Thirty minutes less in my time slot. I had to make at least three hundred words or I couldn't even count it as writing.

With the kettle filled and plugged in, I rinsed out the tea pot and dropped in another bag. I watched it fall to the bottom. What little water remained as residue at the bottom of the empty pot seeped into the bag and coloured itself pink. Cranberry tea. It was my last line of defence on a wordless day.

Judgement

Her judgement faltered, in herself, in her relationships, in every task she ever performed. Though she tried to make good choices and she held onto the belief that she maintained a sense of right and wrong, she sabotaged her life, one mistake at a time.

In her sessions with her therapist, she dodged the issue. Always bringing up more pressing concerns like the promotion at work that didn't pan out or the chemo therapy her father endured. The mechanics of her mess, the truths behind why she fell for emotionally unavailable men or why she loved her cat more than herself, these she kept buried, locked, and isolated.

Love hurt. Men didn't like her, they used her. Sustainable relationships were a myth. The mantra of despair to live by.

She cycled through destructive behaviours. One week, she would eat and snack until she made herself sick. The next she would visit the gym every day, doing two maybe even three aerobics classes to distract herself from sadness. The worst, though, was when she would visit her mother's grave and sob, after work each night, sharing her grief with the only person who had seemed to understand her. The net result bought her more unhappiness and a bigger sense of loss for the life she wished she had.

If only she could dig herself out of the dungeon she'd built. If only she could secure happiness without tying it to a man she'd never truly understand. If only life would cut her some slack.

Steam

She painted shadows with steam. Each one a fleeting work of art embossed on acrylic, porcelain, and chrome. Though they captured her mood, they could not hold it for more than a few moments once her body moved away.

Her hand touched the cold faucet, leaving a curve reminiscent of the worn slopes of ancient mountains long eroded by time's passage. When she submerged her hand in the tub once more, she watched the mountain evaporate, reducing to a thin line and then gone.

Pressing her heels against the far side of the tub, she left mid-air footprints in white sand. One after another, her toe prints left a trail of mystery. Where did she travel? What had she seen? Whose lives had she touched.

Many lives.

And like the friends who fade when circumstances change, the prints scattered, leaving her alone.

So dreadfully alone.

Hike

The hike through the woods always brought a sense of peace. The oxygen, the tall boughs, and the whispering of leaf against leaf in the wind.

She stepped carefully, keeping her feet low to the ground and her eyes ahead on the trail. A squirrel darted across her path and scurried up a tree.

"Good day to you sir. Or are you a madam?"

The creature did not respond.

Further along, the trees grew closer to the path and roots stuck up, tripping her more often than not. She searched for each step, cautious of brown bumps. But they hid themselves well, eager to bring her to their level.

They succeeded.

Her pants torn, and her knee scraped, she struggled back to her feet. "I won't let you win. I'm smarter than you give me credit for."

After a steep climb, she dodged a pair of beech trees growing around each other and rounded a corner. Beyond the path, a brook beckoned. She eased down to a rock in the middle and dipped her fingers in the cool water.

Unsure of its cleanliness, she hesitated before cleansing her scrapes. The coolness won out and she dabbled relief on her aches.

"Thank you, brook, for your kindness."

"Do you expect it to answer?"

She spun around to find a man, handsome and strong, standing within arm's reach.

Dizzy

The dizzy spell lingered, like bad food past midnight.

She wanted to rest, to put her head down and sleep for hours on end. But single mothers can't afford that kind of luxury. The gods don't allow it.

So she pushed herself on, one slow step at a time. To stop her fingers from numbing up, she cranked the heat. The bill wouldn't be due for another two weeks. To keep her energy level up, she drank tea. Cup after cup of it, until she lived in the washroom. To maintain her sanity, she mediated. But her thoughts wouldn't focus, they drifted to the edges where romance reigns king.

The kids played, fighting with swords one minute and action figures the next. Extras arrived, increasing the fun level but adding to the responsibility factor. She kept them in snacks and videos, watching the clock and praying for bedtime to race closer.

The phone rang. She hoped against hope that the person on the other end would rescue her. Drawn into the depths of the drama triangle, she longed for release from her dizzy prison.

Would she like her carpets cleaned? The price had never been lower.

She didn't have any carpets.

The room spun and she closed her eyes to the turmoil once more. She would find inner calm, even if she had to wait until midnight, or later. One slow breath at a time.

Granola

I hate granola bars. They have to be the closest thing to cardboard while still being considered a food. My mother used to pack them in my lunch every single day for the twelve years I was in school. I will never eat another one for the rest of my life.

Until today.

I ate my lunch on the steps of my office building. Along came the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Rather than ignoring me completely, she plunked down beside me and said, "I love your tie."

I shrugged. "Got it at Sears."

"Cool," she said. "Wanna swap lunches?"

How could I say no? A beautiful woman couldn't possibly have a bad lunch, or so I thought. Then she opened her bag and pulled out three different kinds of granola bars.

So I'm chewing one, and holding a smile. I wonder if she thinks its a fake smile? I'm betting that my salmon sandwich buys me a phone number. If only I could swallow this cardboard and grin.

Elephant

I grabbed the elephant's tail and pulled. It was a stupid thing to do, I know, but I was only six years old at the time.

He kicked me straight in the chest, knocking me a good twelve feet into the side of a concrete shed. My back snapped in two.

That's the short version of how I ended up in this wheelchair. I'm used to it now, believe me, after twenty one years, eleven months and twelve days in it. Give or take. But every night I dream that I can walk.

I miss it so much.

The day I first saw the blonde at the mall, she stared past me, like everyone else. Her eyes glanced down once, then flicked away, embarrassed, ashamed. That's the worst part about being a cripple. People are afraid to notice me, as if their mothers will smack them upside the head and complain that they're staring. I wouldn't mind a good stare. It's better than being ignored.

The second time I followed the blonde from stall to stall. She pretended not to notice me trailing her, but she knew. I listened to her haggle over the price of mangos and complain when the guy at the corn stall tried to stuff two bad cobs into her dozen. She was strong, intelligent, and self-confident. I needed to know her name.

Alone

A woman can't live on bread alone. Nor can she survive without a lava lamp, a Japanese teapot, and Billy Holiday on CD.

Yet on a daily basis, Chloe didn't make time for these frivolities. She listened to books on tape to save time, took fast showers so she'd get to work early, and her aroma beads grew stale on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.

Dreams are free, drifted through her mind on the drive to Huntsville Elementary. Dreams didn't require Hep A shots, or fat wallets, or condoms for that matter. Dreams kept her alive. Without them, her soul would surely wither and die.

Teachers don't meet many men above the age of twelve. The ones who show up for parent-teacher conferences are married. And male coworkers either had significant others attached at the hip or were too young to consider.

Her best years had bypassed her entirely. They skipped town on a Greyhound and never sent postcards. They were probably shacked up with the daydreams of the wealthy and carefree.

She passed a coffee shop and longed to stop. Every day she tasted a Chai tea in her mind. But her wallet stayed fused. Money paid for three things: the mortgage, the car, and the bills. Extra was a hard to come by as a good man.

Destroying

She spent the days building the world and the nights destroying herself.

Food provided all that she required: nourishment, comfort, and the tool with which to kill herself, one bad calorie at a time.

Every day she awoke, dreaming of a healthy lifestyle. Today would be the day she would eat only salads and soups and curl up with a good book as a pat on the back for her achievement.

She started with breakfast, a couple of slices of toast, no margarine, and a hint of jam. A small victory.

All morning she worked. A phone call here, a spreadsheet there, one solid task after another.

For lunch, she ate a salad. Sure, she added a slice of lean turkey breast and indulged in salad dressing, but a metered portion, and the light variety. After, she slogged back two glasses of water to convince her stomach to move on. It worked.

The three o'clock snack cravings arrived but she resisted. Wait until dinner, and the rewards will pile up. She compromised by making dinner early, but a healthy one, with meatless chilli topped with yogurt not sour cream.

After dinner, she ran errands, staying well clear of the house and temptation. But upon her return, she crashed. First a nap snuck up on her. Then she awoke and realized she hadn't finished the dishes. They stood on the counter in the kitchen. Right beside the pantry where a bag of Doritos lived. They whispered in her ear. "We're here. We're yummy. Just eat a few."

Soon, the dishes forgotten, she inhaled the bag, munching harder and faster on the chips until she almost bit a finger. Another good day wasted, another disappointment.

Next trip to the grocery store, she would skip the chip aisle.

Clumsy

Alma moaned from the pain of being clumsy. Another bruise -- a giant green and purple kaleidoscope of misdirected blood.

She always had one somewhere. Not because her man beat her and not because she had a lack of coordination. Frustration makes for physical discomfort. Plain and simple.

Most days, she held back the urge to cry. An extra heavy sigh here, a shiver then, the hurt boiling within a breath of the surface. But the tears, they rarely escaped. Only sissies cry.

Wealth was a strange mistress. She crept up on Alma when she least expected, whispering in her ear, scratching at her palm. She seeps in the nooks and crannies, til she's established like an ant farm or roaches. Monthly spraying and mist-bombs won't have much effect.

Some people, maybe they're smarter, or maybe not, they play wealth's games, indulging in her tastes and smells til the well runs dry. They have two choices then -- work harder or walk away forever.

Alma, she didn't choose either. She fought wealth, with second-hand clothes and self-control. No weakness would ever get the best of her. Not ever.

She shoved at life so hard that it fell down and skinned its knee. No self-sacrifice was too grand. With her head down, and her nerves ablaze, she pressed on, cleaning, running, counting, whatever the moment demanded. But when you don't look where you're going, you're bound to walk into a wall.

It hurts.

And it doesn't stop. It's only replaced by a fresh wound. But the tears, they never come.

If only she could raise her chin and dodge. Find a strong hand to grab onto. Fight through to happiness.

But misery's always easier to unearth.

Roses

The Roses fell at her feet. Not the beautiful long-stemmed kind that lovers buy each other in the height of courtship. Not red or white or yellow or pink.

The dead ones. Black, naturally.

Herdalisha tried to kick them off the platform, but for each one she knocked away three more hurled down from the crowd. She wasn't a witch, and she sure as hell didn't deserve to be burned alive.

Then again, there was that incident with the butcher's wife. And the slaughtered dogs, but that one wasn't entirely her fault. The Gredgelys were hungry and the girls needed to eat or they'd never achieve their fourth level as seogglers.

Breqlando, a slimy unkempt slob and demon worshipper to boot, spit at her as the platform rolled past. Some thanks for the parts-of-a-woman lesson she'd given him for free at the age of nine. Memories in the town of Yvmozekk lapsed swifter than the currents of the Splux River.

"Die, you whore witch!" Arypnavia kicked at the platform.

"After you," said Herdalisha. She couldn't stand the skinny little pleaser. Arypnavia would sweet talk the shit right out of the dumphouse if she thought it would bring her praise or good fortune. If anyone in Yvmozekk mixed secret potions or cast spells on the unbelieving, it had to be Missy Ary.

When the platform slowed to a halt in front of the pyre, Herdalisha caught the gaze of the one person she'd hoped not to see her die. Locbil's reddish-brown hair glinted in the sunlight. His green eyes filled with tears at the sight of her. Then his lips formed the words she couldn't bear to see. The ones she'd longed for him to whisper in her ear after their lovemaking, but had never come.

"No!" Herdalisha found the core of her power. Deep within her chest, between her heart and her ribs, in the pocket of fluid where potent chemicals mixed, she called forth the lightning mélange.

The crowd covered their eyes in the blinding flash of force. The ropes binding Herdalisha's arms evaporated. The platform below her smashed into kindling. And the pyre scattered beyond the outskirts of Yvmozekk.

"Don't mess with a seoggler," she said. Grabbing Locbil's hand, she dashed from the dazed audience before anyone found the courage to stop them.

Slacker

For those of you who were about to kill me for taking so long to post again, I give you an appropriate word. :)

*

Serena had been a slacker for months, saying yes to every request for help and never getting ahead on the pile of work at home. Sure this made her popular among the sorry and downtrodden members of society, but she was on the verge of procrastinating herself into the poorhouse.

Right.

This particular Monday morning, she decided to sleep in, hoping the extra rest would set her on the path to productivity. The shakes were back, worse than the day before. With two months still to go in winter, she figured she'd better stay on the higher dose of meds. Then again, if the shakes got any worse she would certainly jump right out of her skin.

The first job she hauled out of the pile was a photo job. McCrank from the docks wanted her to catch his wife soliciting the neighbour. She grabbed her camera and car keys.

The old Ford hadn't been driven in over a month. It turned over, but only after some kind words and some serious cranking. The plume of smoke would have choked a crowd to death. Luckily the garage door had been stuck in the open position for years.

Right after she turned onto Forsyth, the railroad crossing bars dropped and a freight train crept along the tracks. The guy in the car in front of her pulled a U-turn and drove the wrong way down Forsyth to Second Avenue. Serena considered following his lead; there was hardly any traffic on the one-way street and everyone was stopped for the train. However, her mother's voice of doom and criticism echoed in her head. Don't do it! It's not worth your life. How long can the train possibly take?

But the old bag hadn't been thinking of freight trains near the docks that moved endlessly back and forth as they dropped off and picked up cars.

Seconds turned to minutes. The blue car with the white graffiti moved past Serena's car for the fifteenth time.

Disoriented

Sandra was disoriented on the drive home from the hospital. Despite the pain killers, her body ached all over, especially where the doctor had stitched her up.

Her mother, hater of the highway and lover of nature, took the gravel roads home to the little blue house on Flang Drive that her daughter had fallen in love with. Large maples drifted past, their leaves abloom in reds, oranges and yellows. Sandra watched one leaf plummet towards the car and willed it to slow before it was run over.

It hit the windshield and with one swipe of the wiper blades, its mangled remains dove for the ditch. Timing, the cruel harbourer of fate.

The accident flashed into focus. The red truck, the telephone pole, the crunching sound. The sirens that took ages to creep any closer, as though they were stuck in quicksand on their way to rescue the latest victims. Then the beeps of monitors and stabs of needles. Sandra remembered the IVs most vividly, a painful prick in a sea of torment.

Now, in the bright daylight, with nature ablaze all around her, she could not place herself within the world. She lived in the nether-region of humanity, the places where time means nothing, where one minute you're in a car and the next in recovery. The territory where pain hitches a ride on a freight train and hops from car to car, looking for the best place to settle. Sandra's train neared the station, and soon pain would transfer to another destination.

Sobs waited to erupt from her lungs, but she couldn't birth them yet. Not surrounded by joyous sunshine. The world would scold her for such rudeness. She would save her collapse for the house. Or perhaps the driveway. Close enough.

Her mother kept glancing over at her, asking, "Are you okay?" How many times could Sandra say she was fine before it sank in?

"Oh, look," said her mother. She pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. "Do you see her?"

She pointed to the left where a deer stood staring at the car. The women waited in silence for the doe to bolt. Yet she stood still.

Then she reached up and yanked leaves off the branch of a chestnut sapling. As she chewed her snack, she watched the car.

Sandra said, "She'll be ready for winter soon."

"Yes."

The tight feeling in Sandra's chest eased. The cry that had lingered for the drive home caught the current of an unseen wind and drifted away. What remained was a kinship with the doe. We're both preparing for the hardship ahead.

Limelight

Colin promised me that after four years in the limelight, he'd retire. It's been fourteen. And we still live out of a suitcase and call a van home.

That's show biz, I guess.

I'm a writer. I don't call myself an author because that would imply that I've actually published something. But I make time to write every single day.

For the last two weeks, ever since that empty gig in Cleveland, I've been writing the same thing in my notebook. It's more like lines--the type of repetitive sentences that the teacher would make me write for doing a "thumbs down" to the brown noser whenever he answered a math question or sauntered up to the front of the classroom to claim another honour. Back then the line was, "I will not give a thumbs down to Kevin Snochiez." Now the line is, "I will leave Colin before I turn forty."

It's a got a ring to it.

I've stopped trying to change him. The little guy feels naked without his guitar. And the only time his smile seems genuine is when he's jamming a new blues riff with his friends.

I don't know what it is about the name Colin. Ladies, if you ever have a baby and you don't want him to fall in love with a guitar, then don't name him Colin. Go with Chase, Cassidy, or Cobra even, pick ANY other name that starts with a "C". Leave Colin be.

I mean it.

There have got to be dozens of Colins doing the blues circuit in Canada alone. Colin James and Colin Linden come to mind first, but I could name a half-dozen others. No point though. The end result is the same.

Getting back to my woes, I bought a new notebook at the dollar store yesterday, while Colin and the boys were eating at the Denny's. I can't stand that greasy crap. I'd rather eat a salad in the van. Anyway, the new book has a big, bright, cheery flower on the front. I'm usually not one of those "frilly-girl" types, but this one caught my eye. It screams, "Joy," and that's what I need to finally write my novel. I'm gonna start planning the plot today. In the new book. On page one. Where all the good stories have to start.

Restore

I set myself the goal of three months to restore the ship. Seemed like enough time to get the parts I needed. Ninety days of tracing short circuits and swapping loose couplings and I'd be off Forbi for good.

I had enough cash to keep my rent up until then. Good thing, since my scum-lord would eat me if I couldn't make rent. Nasdool sent regular comp cheques for wrecking my back in the "incident". They paid a lot of us off. We traded money for our silence; a good deal in my books. I'm no stoolie. Besides, I was probably partly to blame for what happened.

The screaming haunts me at night. Len and Brod, they worked on level eight in my sector that night. I was up to my elbows in coolant, swapping out a bad seal on the forechurners when the turbines started to fail. Without circulation, the air up on six and higher got ripe fast. Len and Brod didn't wear their gear regularly, none of us did. The stuff weighed over a hundred pounds and even with the point-six-gees factor, we couldn't maneuver into tight places suited up.

So they rabbited.

I heard the alarm and scrammed out from under churner three. Brod secured a line, hopped the railing, and started to rappel down to safety. I saw Len up there, and yelled at Brod to pick him up.

His line couldn't hold their combined weight. I knew, but I figured the load reqs were understated. I was wrong.

I watched my friends fall, saw their panicked faces, heard their last screams of fear. Then the chunk of railing that Brod used to secure his line landed on me.

Cozy

The old leather chair by the fireplace was so cozy that I slept in it often. So many times, in fact, that I lost all track of the days.

I was between jobs. The kind of between where food comes out of a can and the heat comes from trees in the neighbourhood parks. If someone came to the door, I wouldn't answer. If the phone rang, I ignored it. But it didn't ring any more since I let that bill slip.

Eventually the cans ran out and the wood got used up, so I had to admit that the world held what I needed--a job. I washed my best clothes in the sink, dried them in the sunshine, and headed to the local hire-front.

I'd passed it on the bus on my way to my old job. It was a storefront on the run-down side of downtown, with a big glass window painted with the slogan "Work Today, Get Paid Today." Luckily, the place was still in business.

I picked the only red plastic chair and sat down. A lady behind a Plexiglas window slid it across and said, "Please register."

I stood and approached the window. A clipboard with a wrinkled piece of paper was covered in the scribbled names of trampled men. I printed my own. The letters looked scattered and jiggly, like I'd trapped my elbow in a washing machine. I hadn't written much in a dog's age.

I sat again in the red chair and leafed through battered magazines. I looked at the pictures mostly, reading wasn't something I fancied. Some of the faces looked familiar; a president here, a movie starlet there, burned-out buildings in wore-torn cities. The news was old but familiar. I could have been reading last week's or last century's events. No matter. Big things only happened to big people. And I was a member of the insignificant micro-people. The ones who society pretends don't exist.

Did I exist? I wasn't sure any more.

Wide

Her hips were wide--big enough to birth a decent baby but not so large that they wouldn't fit into the seat of a Mustang convertible. Not that Bill owned a stang yet.

He watched for her from his Chevette on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He would wait outside the Starbucks on Pico then follow her in.

She didn't order the same drink every time. She had a short list though: Caffè Americano, Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino, and Cinnamon Spice Mocha. Three drinks on which to build a foundation of living the good life.

For three months Bill had been building up the courage to ask her out. He wasn't much to look at, with his receding red hairline and his freckled cheeks. His over-abundance of arm hair was a particular sore spot on his self esteem-o-meter, but he chose long sleeves to mask the issue. The second Thursday in February was the perfect day for the big nudge. If she said yes, he'd spend Valentines Day with a woman for the first time since his mom took him for ice cream in the fifth grade.

Bill waited inside the Starbucks, holding a copy of the L.A. Times in one hand and his sunglasses in the other. He leaned against the door frame, doing his best to be ready to approach her and also not block the entrance for the other morning patrons. He didn't want to offend the employees, or they might ask him to leave, or worse ban him from the store.

She stepped through the door, wearing a pink skirt and a brown leather jacket with a striped scarf.

He took a deep breath.

She dropped a penny.

He lunged to grab it before she could.

"Here." It came out slightly louder than he'd planned as he thrust the penny towards her face. "I'm Bill. What's your name?"

"Thanks, Bill." She turned her attention to the Starbucks menu board.

"I didn't catch your name," he said.

"I didn't offer it."

"I've seen you in here. I thought we might get together for a coffee sometime. Here, or anyplace you like. Maybe tomorrow, I know it's not your regular day, but--"

"No thanks." She left the line up and hurried out the door. Bill never saw her again.

Clean

Since I moved to Nabdona, I've never felt clean.

The indigenous people cleanse themselves with hot sand. They warm the granules over a fire or in an electric oven and then scrub their skin raw. I don't prepared the sand myself. Kejru and I usually visit the sand bars.

During our welcome tour, the guide brought us to the Hacclad bar--a huge pit filled with fine granules and epithelials. I shudder whenever I imagine the countless pieces of patrons brewing and ripening in the pit. The bar itself was built over hot vents, so the sand is kept at a constant temperature. Sifters turn the contents every hour, and particulates drop through screens in the base to be "reclaimed". Kejru summoned the courage to ask how they are reclaimed and what they are turned into, but he did not share his knowledge with me. I thank him every day for that.

The sand is warmer, more penetrating, than bathwater could ever be. But the feel of it is nothing like a liquid. When chatting with my new friends and neighbours here, I've tried to explain what swimming felt like. How the water filled my ears, damping some sounds and amplifying others. How my body floated, what buoyancy did to my human spirit. But they cross their stalks or exhale in short bursts, both ways of conveying their puzzlement. I didn't think to bring images. I left in too much of a hurry.

Kejru had been sentenced to death or removal. He had used up the goodwill that Earth had to offer. A Bpooni, he skipped from planet to planet unloading cargos of exotic furnishings in exchange for hospitality and cultural exposure. He said that home decorating is the only true ambassador. That to share and explore with a people, one must adorn their living spaces then bask in the ambiance.

I fell for his tales of adventure. And when they caught him shooting uwenqs into his veins, he was convicted on the spot. Interstellar drug dealers are unwelcome in our solar system.

Tide

High tide always scared the hell out of me. The stories I used to read as a kid, where the hero was in a cave and got trapped by the tide would leave me with my security eroded and my body alert for attack. The nights I read adventures like that I'd sleep with my head buried under the covers and the pillow, trying to stop water from seeping into my soul.

I don't know why I've never moved away from the sea. Considering my phobia, living in a place like Hallaton or Chelmorton might have made more sense. Little stone houses and patchwork fields cut with streams that have no tides. No highs and lows of salty danger invading my life twice each day.

But I've lived in Deal all of my days. On the beach. I can't count the number of days I've watched the waters come and go, in a never ending cycle linked to the moon. I've never learned what beasts lurk under that dark surface. I've never investigated a cave at low tide, or picnicked beside tidal pools teeming with interesting creatures. I've always given the tides a respectful distance.

And they have provided the same courtesy.

Last night on the news, another tidal surge was headed for Texas. People were packing their lives into their vehicles and heading for higher ground. I would join them. I would pack my photographs and my Japanese fighting fish and drive until I felt safe.

Safety has been a harsh mistress for me. She has lurked in my closets and read a book while I ventured toward my future. But will she always be my saviour? Or did I merely rack up points owed so that one day the sea can claim me?