Photo by Cesar Melo

Photo by Cesar Melo

I wondered how long he would stand there, so still, as the sky exploded in nuclear colors all around him. He stood so still. A few times I questioned whether he was really there. And then his arm would slowly raise and he’d put his hand up like he was shading his eyes, or giving a salute, or trying to see something far, far away. His arm would come back down and he was perfectly still again.

I felt like I should connect with him in some way. He was watching the sunset and I was watching him watch the sunset. I thought hard about him, trying to send some connection over the rocks to him. I imagined bio-fiber optics, tendrils from my brain to his. I wanted to feel like I knew him. It seemed like details from his life were coming across to me. He had a dog. He kept a red bowl near the back door in his house, in the kitchen, that he used to give the dog water. It wasn’t a dog bowl though. A repurposed cereal bowl. The dog stood lapping and splashing water onto the sand colored tile. He stopped to look at his owner (to look at me) periodically and lick the water off his black lips and whiskers. Then back to the water. There was a surfboard hung on a wall. 

I saw scenes from his life. A recent conversation with a co-worker maybe. They were in an office building, cubes, etc. They were talking about the movie Boogie Nights. They quoted lines to one another, “I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth. That’s just me. That’s just something that I enjoy.” They both said the last sentence of that together. 

It slowly got dark. I could still make out his silhouette. His arm coming up. His arm going down. His dog splashing its tongue into the red bowl. Did he move a little? I concentrated. More scenes. He (i) was having sex with a petite blond woman. We looked down at his penis sliding inside her. Soon he was a black cutout against a slightly less black backdrop. I blinked and when I looked again, he was gone.