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Description
Where do you wanna go?
I don't mind. Anywhere's fine.

Just here?
Yeah, it looks good to me.
There's a family nearby, actually.
So?
So, nothing. I'm just saying, there is.

They sit down on sand. The tide's coming in and they take off their shoes, feel the sharp-edged corpses of molluscs prick against their feet. Behind them, Malaga yawns.

He thinks it's beautiful. Picasso was born here. The city hums with age. Its streets are time machines, the soft sand of its beach marred by the bare feet of half a dozen empires. But what she notices is the jagged smears of industry stab into the horizon, the drab-brown beachside blocks looming over them like the shadow of her father at six-years-old.

Hey, the kid's coming over.
Yeah, so?
He's got a camera.

Click

The kid grins at them.

What a little shit.
Leave him alone.

His family are already halfway up the strip. His father calls out to him in a language they don't understand and he calls back and runs off, his camera dangling from his neck like a locket, and she feels, inexplicably, a flash of regret, even betrayal. Now they are alone.

He's gone.
Yeah. I told you it's no big deal.
Yeah, okay. Okay.

They just sit there in silence for a while with their bodies touching and their toes dipped in the water a little bit. She's looking at a flock of birds darting towards the horizon, getting smaller by the second until they're barely shadow-specks on a film of orange cosmos, and for some reason all this just reminds her of all the empty bottles and occasional broken glass crime scenes her mother left around the house in her father's absence.

Meanwhile he can't stop looking at her face and admiring the smoothness of her skin, and he genuinely believes that she's the most beautiful thing that's ever entered his life, and the freckles on her cheeks and black rings around her eyes that she hates and tries so hard to cake in make-up only serve as a reminder of how perfect she is. And he's not naïve by any means, he's been around and seen the sights and loved a hundred women before her but for some reason he can't help but feel like this was somehow meant to be, was meant to last, and a voice of something not unlike religion whispers in his ear.

The two of them sit on that beach as clouds tower over them like boogeymen and the setting sun burns their faces with the power of Hiroshima. He puts his arm around her and holds her close to him and tells her he loves her and means it, and she says the same thing but doesn't.

Dusk takes them.

Later that night they go home and make love in the kind of silence that means a million things to a million people. Six months later she'll be in an LA hospital holding her mother's hand and he'll have settled in a nice German town where all the girls are gorgeous and they'll never speak to each other again, but for now they're lying side by side, bodies glistening with sweat and fervour, and she falls asleep on his chest while he stares up at the ceiling thinking about Cassado's music, and the sound of the sea washes over them both.

Description
Where do you wanna go?
I don't mind. Anywhere's fine.

Just here?
Yeah, it looks good to me.
There's a family nearby, actually.
So?
So, nothing. I'm just saying, there is.

They sit down on sand. The tide's coming in and they take off their shoes, feel the sharp-edged corpses of molluscs prick against their feet. Behind them, Malaga yawns.

He thinks it's beautiful. Picasso was born here. The city hums with age. Its streets are time machines, the soft sand of its beach marred by the bare feet of half a dozen empires. But what she notices is the jagged smears of industry stab into the horizon, the drab-brown beachside blocks looming over them like the shadow of her father at six-years-old.

Hey, the kid's coming over.
Yeah, so?
He's got a camera.

Click

The kid grins at them.

What a little shit.
Leave him alone.

His family are already halfway up the strip. His father calls out to him in a language they don't understand and he calls back and runs off, his camera dangling from his neck like a locket, and she feels, inexplicably, a flash of regret, even betrayal. Now they are alone.

He's gone.
Yeah. I told you it's no big deal.
Yeah, okay. Okay.

They just sit there in silence for a while with their bodies touching and their toes dipped in the water a little bit. She's looking at a flock of birds darting towards the horizon, getting smaller by the second until they're barely shadow-specks on a film of orange cosmos, and for some reason all this just reminds her of all the empty bottles and occasional broken glass crime scenes her mother left around the house in her father's absence.

Meanwhile he can't stop looking at her face and admiring the smoothness of her skin, and he genuinely believes that she's the most beautiful thing that's ever entered his life, and the freckles on her cheeks and black rings around her eyes that she hates and tries so hard to cake in make-up only serve as a reminder of how perfect she is. And he's not naïve by any means, he's been around and seen the sights and loved a hundred women before her but for some reason he can't help but feel like this was somehow meant to be, was meant to last, and a voice of something not unlike religion whispers in his ear.

The two of them sit on that beach as clouds tower over them like boogeymen and the setting sun burns their faces with the power of Hiroshima. He puts his arm around her and holds her close to him and tells her he loves her and means it, and she says the same thing but doesn't.

Dusk takes them.

Later that night they go home and make love in the kind of silence that means a million things to a million people. Six months later she'll be in an LA hospital holding her mother's hand and he'll have settled in a nice German town where all the girls are gorgeous and they'll never speak to each other again, but for now they're lying side by side, bodies glistening with sweat and fervour, and she falls asleep on his chest while he stares up at the ceiling thinking about Cassado's music, and the sound of the sea washes over them both.