Tom Laichas
From the street's butt-end, I head toward the beach. The fog smells like rain. It's 5 a.m., and there's no horizon.
Ahead, three wetsuited men carry their boards to the surf. Beyond, swathed in white chiffon, seabirds wail. At the water's edge, waves slur at my skin, cold and quiet.
Then, overhead, sudden as Apocalypse, a police chopper whirlybirds in. The machine, an Angel of the Lord, hovers in place, unseen above the fogbank. Bright blindsticks, their light diffused, zigzag from sand to water and back.
Ten minutes go by. Finding nothing but cloudtop, the searchlights go dark and the machine turns inland.
The air quiets.
What did they think they would see? The morning fog is opaque. These officers have the authority. But here, just after dawn, they don't have the power.
Later, the sun rises, the moisture burns off, and the shore, for a while, is empty.
In my city, solitude is like that: suspect and fugitive.