Winds came hard from the east, carrying my ex to the sands she loved and an urn, a bequeathment from her father, now chipped, his old apartment full of former students.

The water flooded up into a pool, the students playing and spitting, little to say, the phone – the phone again! – half burned in the muddy sand, unable to grip, to move back, even with the kids trying to throw rocks, thinking he might never come back, and then having to go to the bathroom, always that.

He was a baby. He wanted everything for himself and then none of it, vanishing into nothing. And not even that.