The Dialect of Things

Ch.4

After the yearbook, since there’s no theme, I like to share a draft from my book. You might remember other iterations, it might seem a little familiar, because it started here a long time ago. Which seems right. To share this, which is part of another colossal collection of many years, of the things that made me. Enjoy.

It looked like glass, the sea. The green kind only the sea could make. It was a November bay, crashing along the rocks, foamed and green, undisturbed by footfall so that the sand had settled to reveal the true color and the the jetty stretched out with a yawn. A mid-fall green bottle-colored look, like jumping in would freeze you and break it all at once. But I wanted to. It was hard to reconcile. Summer had not been over long enough. Salty, cold, a gust passed up the rocks and into me. I stumbled back, shoving my hands in my pockets, and tucking my mouth into the collar of my jacket. No one was out. A few fishermen maybe, pulling rope, tying it in a language I did not understand. A kind of cursive, the dialect of things.