​There’s a place in the cove, a place with a view of the rocks that sit like unused material in the abandoned construction of the coarse cliff side. Sheltered from the sun by the overhung jungle, the crabs stagger this stone field, much of the surface a blanket of surgical edges. Old folks tell of a pirate movie filmed here in the forties. The stones made filming delicate and dangerous for the mermaids. The waves lap here at low tide, keeping time. The planetary chronograph.  The sun sets between the towering stones during certain months. As things have gone, I find it impossible not to think of it. I am ruined by it. The red sea, breathing under the lust of the sun’s blinding egg yolk. Dolphin fins cut tracks on the surface. The salt breeze. It is all I see. No matter how much effort I waste to change it.    

​White gleam oppressed the sky, forcing one eye shut while the other surveyed the rock wall ahead of him. Five hundred feet of scrub and cactus curved the talus to the three hundred feet of jagged wall. He knew the fastest ascent. He knew the location of the hidden crack where very few before him had climbed the natural steps to the top, shortening the trek to town by a day. By now, his pursuers moved at a far greater speed behind him, somewhere in the valley. Probably on the old mining road. One of their three choices. Not the fastest choice but the easiest. Confident they had him out flanked. He imagined the dust they must have kicked up near the flatland breaks by the river. He imagined the children from the state home in awe of their numbers, their uniforms, their weapons. He hadn’t yet calculated his move a full fledged hoodwink but if they were to mistake his absence on the other side of the mountain tomorrow as anything but their own mistake, his strategy will have reaped a reward he had not considered until now.