He walks along the coast, his only companions the slither of wet shells and the pounding waves, haunted by the future's ghost and the shadows of the past. He's drunk again, of course, though it doesn't matter so much now, after the accident on I-76 killed his wife and daughter. Just bad luck, they told him, a sleepy truck driver and a patch of ice.
His mind wanders again to the nine and the magazine full of hollow points in the nightstand drawer, wonders when.
"Soon," he whispers, the word lost in the crash of the surf as he zig zags across the sand, raising the fifth to his lips as he chuckles darkly.
He steps on a spiky shell and stumbles, falls to one knee with a curse. He almost drops the bottle, almost.
"Bastard," he slurs, hackles up and full of stupid wrath. He glares at the shattered conch, its striations of purple and pearl and sandy cream, wrapped in the vestiges of driftwood and dead seaweed. "If I had a hammer I'd finish you."
The cry of a seagull brought him back, and all of a sudden he realized where he was, who he was. So small, on the edge of the world and all alone, again the roar of the sea and the empty sky his only company.
He almost began to cry himself, yet he wouldn't. Couldn't. He took another swig of vodka instead, and continued on his unmerry way down the beach.
"Hate you," he mutters. His leg is bleeding yet he doesn't know it, and red tears stain the white sand in his wake.
-
"This quadratic equation is key to understanding how to solve most basic polynomials," the math teacher drones as Allyson drifts. It's warm in the classroom, in the sunbeam that bathes her desk, and birdsong and the whispering susurrus of sycamore leaves in the wind is hypnotic through the dusty glass of the window.
The badger attacks the blackboard with a bone white piece of chalk, carving out a series of symbols so arcane they may as well have been heiroglyphs.
"Fuck I hate this class," she said softly, fighting to stay awake.
"Hey beautiful, I'm taking notes just for you," the ferret at the desk next to her whispered. "We could meet up after and I could-"
"Shove 'em where Sol don't shine scuzzball," the vixen snarled, showing him her canines.
He started laughing.
"Something funny back there?" the badger barked, waving his piece of chalk wildy in recrimination. "This is the math that defines the universe! It's very serious stuff. It is you know."
The ferret laughed even harder. Allyson put her head down with a sigh, savored the coolness of laminated wood and the muffling effect her furry arms had as they covered her ears. Would it ever end?
-
"She had a stuffed dolphin," he told the beach, raising the bottle in a mock toast and swaying in the salty wind. "The eyes were black buttons, shiny and small..." he trailed off. For a moment he just stood there, a small shadow before the restless ocean's vastness. Then he took a huge drink from the bottle. "She talked to it, from like six to ten it was her best friend."
The beach had no reply. The tide was rising. A wave crashed down, bringing shells and froth. Glistening cochinos busily burrowed into the wet sand after it receded, and seabirds were in abundance, some hunting along the strand, some wheeling overhead.
"Still have it," he declared from nowhere, collapsing on his haunches to the sand. The world was spinning. "Danielle the Dolphin, princess of the Seven, and my beautiful daughter. Something else those two were, yes."
Another wave rolled in, and as it did darkness took the fox.