First page?

I’m the backseat of a car that looks like a washing machine on wheels.

A borrowed woman cradles my head in her lap, her huge breasts hanging over my eyes like ripe promises.

It’s late. Really late. So late it’s early for most people. Everything is closed.

All of these wrongs add up to a right.

There’s a cassette in the old car’s stereo. Led Zeppelin. Recorded from vinyl. It sounds awful and perfect. The hiss feels like the universe is pouring itself into my brain, dragging in some of the grime from the sleeping sidewalks.

My silence is infinite.

The vehicle makes its way to the beach and I know that’s where the fireworks will go off inside each of us and something akin to love will wrap itself around our ignorance and enhance this high so damn precious it seems stolen.

When we get to the beach, something breaks.

A skinny man is kneeling near the ocean. He’s mumbling something about aliens and gems. We laugh. We keep walking. We look for dark places to hide and let the sand and twigs bite our skin, let the insects crawl over us like nothing matters.

The borrowed girlfriend has nipples like pancakes and smells like sweat, perfume, and glory.

I want to pull out of her and fuck the earth, make love to the beach, impregnate this moment so that a part of it will live on after it’s over.

Someone spills a glass of thick orange juice over the horizon and we all go back to the car.

There’s silence and smiles.

We go home, but a part of us stays there forever.