What Lies Before Us

His gaze shot out past the buoys that marked the space between safe passage and immanent destruction. Wind found its way over the Pacific and onto the little stretch of beach, ruffling his graying yet still thick hair. He never knew what to do with his hair. For a few years he had let it grow long, falling in great curled tendrils around his ears. Then as time wore on and he let society dictate how he should look he cut his hair short and combed it straight back.

Today, standing with his face to the wind driven waves that broke beneath his feet he cared not what his hair looked like because not only had society and its stringent codes of conduct failed him, he had failed himself. The work of his hands was the only work he found joy in and once that was taken from him he saw that what was once solid became fluid. A river of regret was born out of that small stream and he followed that river to the ocean that now lay before him. And like men always did, he saw no other choice but to face what he had created.

And so into creation he went and never returned, at least not as the man he was before.