Gravity's Chain

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I woke at four in the morning, stumbled through the debris of last night’s fight and poured my first Dos Gusanos of the day. The tequila stung my tongue. I paused to catch a breath before emptying the glass with one gulp and wiped away a dribble on my chin with the back of my hand. Carrying glass and bottle I returned to the living room with its dismembered furniture and poured my second. There were no curtains in the room. Dad said they ruined the view, ‘compromised’ I think was the word he used. When I was young we’d stand together and gaze at the sea, he in his maroon flannel shorts, me in black togs. He would lightly brush the top of my hair with the fingers of one hand while holding a pink plastic cup of lemonade with the other. Can you see all there is to see? he’d ask. All I could see was the sea, but I never knew if that was enough for him.

Sipping the tequila now, I sat with my feet perched on the cracked glass of the coffee table, watching the rays of a three-quarter moon ripple on the sea. The light was sufficient to reveal our violence in the night. Three chairs lay tipped over, their cane legs, turned dull chrome in the moonlight, strutted at every angle. Cushions, magazines and books, several with broken spines, were flung to all corners of the room and the glass of two bottles and three tumblers lined the floor at the back wall where they had been fired one after the other by Caroline as I dodged her missiles. Closing my eyes to this scene I listened to the waves gently breaking on the beach just thirty metres away.

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