the tide

The day bends to the visible spectrum, bright and blue and vaguely missed. A cat makes a run at some blur of a bird, children chase each other, screaming beneath an open sky. Surprises remain mostly surreptitious. I step outside to blow an ant off the back of my hand. In a world where most paths remain unseen, it seems the least I could do.

It is another long unscripted scene, where the urge to improvise is largely absent. I don't say much, I do very little. Every simple gesture suddenly seeming alarmingly grand. Acting is all about choices. I am still and quiet and blank. I stoop slightly beneath a bough laden with apple blossoms. I stare into the broad and dimming distance, aware that something is missing.

The feeling is typical. The feeling is in character. The slow enduring ache, the aimless restless longing. The light diffuses in my flesh, splitting heat and bright, changing bandwidth as it mingles in the shallow end of these veins and capillaries. I close my eyes, taking in what warmth there is while it lasts. The sun lingers on the horizon, out where the sky bends over mountains, out where an unseen ocean is lit, blazing and bright as it turns and roils. I turn my back and walk away, eyes open, awaiting the inevitable shadows, that familiar and enduring tide.