This Weightlessness, Like Sinking

From Moody Towers












To beach access point #15










I went walking by myself along a beach in Galveston. My friends were concerned because I was gone so long they thought I might have drowned. But I just picked up a rock that was smooth, flat and dark, and fit perfectly in the curve of my right index finger. I rubbed it even smoother as I watched small boys with large crab nets, large men with coolers full of beer, and people with fishing poles greedily eyeing the silver fish that would jump out of the water to tease them. I watched pelicans patrol the island and glide inches above the ocean waiting for those silly silver fish to come too close. But after a while I stopped watching and started in on that rhythm that gets me going. I rubbed my finger along that smooth edge and then let it fly above my head as I walked. Toss, wait (one-two-three seconds above my head), catch. Toss, wait, catch. Toss, wait, catch. In that time where the stone hovered between my eyes and the sun, I traveled backwards and forwards in time and space. I traveled to the asteroid belt and back, down to the heaviest parts of the ocean and up to the most weightless parts of the sky. I hovered there above my head like the stone, then came crashing down and into the sweaty palm of my present.

And then it was gone.

But I held onto that stone and then slowly brought it to my mouth and it was cool and salty on my tongue (just like you, I thought). Afterwards I brought it out and put it back in its place in the curve of my right index finger and I thought "two-toned" (just like me, you said).