Waves played to the slap of their feet in the tide-rising pools. Each time they went a little farther out. The water no longer scared them.

Black eye of seal saluted them in the currents. They ran with the green river, past the canoe place, beneath the spanning concrete arms of Atlas holding the world at bay above them. Behind them. 

All of that was behind them, now.

Up on the beach now, shaking water free, already in stride, racing for the surf, for the turmoil. Each with their own gait, different in all aspect save for ferocity. They were humans sprinting with the lopes of wolves. Their skin shone in the living starlight.

But it was the light of the Moon that tracked them on their swim. It made the beaches they passed glow. 

Each looked to the other. Their eyes wondered together, asked one another, “That’s it? Can we go no further?”

On they swam, their backs glistening. All manner of beast came to see them. Fish leapt from the surface while, below, a great white turned her head in stroke with the swimmers. A pod of whales sang a new saga, and an albatross soared along until they went too far. 

Chests heaving, they found their feet somewhere north, where the beaches had grown wilder. Debris, trees lay strewn about the sands and rocks. The tallest forests either of them had even seen loomed ahead, awaiting them. 

One asked the other what the truth was.

“What is this?” He asked.

“I can go on forever,” the other replied.

They laughed. 

They were unstoppable. As fleet as the wind. 

On they ran, and, as they did, their minds began to change too.

Benji learned to blow his own nose, but it would be another week before he threw away the tissue. Philo was building his own ships now—wide, two-dimensional things, and we spent a lot of time at the lego bag, a nebula of sorts, the dust particles made up of blocks, the possibilities endless. 

The bag is a birthplace, a universe. But the bag has rules.

It offers you little until you’ve let go. You can search for an hour for a piece and not find it. But once you’ve given up, the piece you were seeking will appear a hundred times over. Every time you turn the pieces over with your hand, you’ll see another shape you needed five minutes ago, only this time you don’t care. You have no need for it, so you leave them all in the soup. 

I learned to smile at it. It was like dealing with a stubborn, senile old god. 

How is it that I feel them here with me in this place?

That no matter how far I walk into this canyon, I see them frolic alongside me.

There, in the trees.

There, in my chest.

Tell me, will I always come back here?

Will I be wind?

Following their voices?

Chasing every beckon through the branches, startling myself,

Asking trees questions.

Laughing a time with the other seekers, till I catch sight of them

and fly off again.

Tell me, will they ever see me?

I call and I call. 

Without realizing it, they’d fallen into a nice little life. All the things they wanted and thought they should have were somewhere far off still, but they had good people around them. They had family. And all that family made excellent food and filled the spaces in their lives with color.

She still painted. He still wrote. She still cooked exquisitely. He tried really hard on a griddle. He dreamed of selling his words. She wrote for a living. 

They’d been at it awhile and were still in love. Maybe more in love than ever. 

And all the while this was happening, they got the privilege to live with their children. Skinny legs running in pajama pants, feet slapping the floor in the morning on their way to the toilet. Sleepy eyes and the recounting of dreams. Stories told incessantly, filling the air with idea after idea after idea. Questions about absolutely everything.

It hurt to see them grow. 

It was the greatest joy.

There were hints of the future, of the way they’d fall into the background of life, or what felt like the background. They’d been young, children themselves, with dreams and places to go and parties to attend. One day they’d fully assume their backstage roles and wait to hear what their sons were doing out in the world. Life would be so different then; life would be the same. There’d be breakfast, and toilets. There would be these days and the ones that came after.