I cower before you and beg for mercy; you comply by effecting my complete destruction.

I wake up pink and raw, like a well-scrubbed boy, blinking with wonder into the surf. My nose is filled with the smell of salt, my ears with gulls and endless roaring.

My hair is newly blond and I am naked, my small frame lithe and leonine–each muscle with its own special economy. This, for turning my head just so. That, for drumming idly on my belly. My hazel eyes now a deep living brown, like flesh beneath the sun.

I drink from rock pools and eat the prawns that gather there. My stomach has learned to digest the coarse grass of the dunes. I sing to myself in strange languages and modes that were forgotten before they existed. 

The songs signify nothing. They would be songs of praise, or maybe even laments that ache from your absence, but with my first death you have also snapped the neck of all of my memories. You are no more real to me than the places beyond these dunes.

Each morning brings new demented gratitude. I stand staring dumbly on the shore and feel the water lapping at my feet. The waves are friendly tongues of bewildered dogs, welcoming me between horizons.

Joe Kopel is following