A man named Lonely walked down the soft beach,
hand in hand with his wife Vainglory.

The opulent sun slowly rested lower and lower on the horizon,
Seagulls swooped, children chortled.
Sand blew around their ankles and empty pleasantries filled the air.
Lonely and Vainglory could talk for hours yet say nothing.
Waves flirted with the Earth, and Earth flirted right back,
clouding the water with clumps of tumbling sand.

Hand in hand they both wandered elsewhere. Bodies together, minds distant.
So beautiful Vainglory was. She knew it, he knew it.
Every morning Lonely reminded her, telling her, charming her.
It was habit.
Taking it for granted, smiling blankly, in one ear out the other.
Coexistence, habit, kelp.

She stepped on the head of a bull kelp, popping under her weight.
The acrid smell, buzzing flies, salty air returned him to the present.
Still walking. Talking.

Looking back, their footprints in the sand danced around each other,
light on their toes, skirting the ebbing waves filling them in.
As their steps fade, he wonders if they can find their way back.
Hand in hand they trod onward.

-AM