Yesterday, 6:16 PM
Eyes shut tight, I remember as a girl I longed to be like the ocean tide; equally calm and unpredictable and yet seemingly liberated and free. Only later did I realise even the smallest of tides were never truly unbound, but instead silently formed by celestial puppet masters as their gravitational pull prompted the rhythmic rise and fall of the sea.
Inhale.
I don’t care that my palms are clammy. On the hood of Tom’s dusty red Cavalier, with the final rays of the sun on my skin and sea salt sticking to my tongue, I don’t even care that I’d promised to be home straight after work. With as much grace as I can muster, I slide off the hood of the car, digging my feet into a cool blend of grass and sand. An autumnal breeze gently picks up around me, leaves scattering and skidding across a slowly deserting Cronulla Beach.
I take a deep drag of my third cigarette this afternoon; the Marlboros pinched from Tom’s old khaki jacket that had been tucked away at the back of his wardrobe. Our wardrobe.
As smoke billowis into the open air, I think about a time when only skin and bone had dared separate us. When we lay in the quiet, listening to old Beatles songs, until our consciousness slipped past us; our warm bodies folded neatly into each other so that it wasn’t entirely clear where one of us ended and the other began.
Yesterday, 6:50 PM
Look how weathered he is. Skin fissured and cracked like asphalt, hands thickened and riddled with callouses, my grandfather smells distinctly of camphor overlaid with the sweetness of mango. His eyes bright despite his old age, he smiles coyly as if he is bedridden by choice and not by the arthritis throbbing in his spine and left hip. A half-empty bottle of oxycodone sits on his bed-side table while a dozen small pills line the wooden floorboards. Instantly, guilt washes over me as I avert eye contact with a man I had not seen in six months. He scarcely elicits a moves, his face half hidden in the darkness of the room.
“Don’t you have a wedding to plan, eh?” He whispers hoarsely. I shrug my shoulders and edge closer to the bed, his fingers trembling as he reaches for my hand. As I sink into the nearest armchair, our hands finally fasten in a tight embrace.
Slowly, I lift my head and this time I meet his steady gaze. “Is it worth it, Pop? Marriage, kids? I just don’t wanna feel… tied down.”
“When you’re in love? Yes. God yes. A million times over. Even after Gil died it was worth it,” He pauses momentarily as if to ensure his next words are selected with extra precision, and then, “But it’s not about whether it’s worth it, is it? It’s about whether it’s even there in the first place…”
Two years ago, 11:46 PM
We had run up the bluff together – his clammy hands grasping never more than three of my fingers at a time – mutually ignoring the signs screaming “DANGER. NO ACCESS BEYOND THIS POINT.” In the distance, forgotten cafés with paper thin walls quivered as loud Spanish music flowed through them like the cheap red wine they served. With tangled hair whipping in the wind, I rested my head on his shoulder while words collected on my tongue and we overlooked the tide eroding perfectly sculpted sandcastles in its wake.
Yesterday, 6:39 PM
Only two years and twelve days separate the last time my fingers had brushed this same salt water, my hands dripdripdripping wet upon the untouched golden sand while the sun had long since dipped behind the horizon.
Only two years and twelve days and yet… the air seems different, the water darker, the wind colder.
Reaching for a pebble, I fling it mindlessly before watching it skid across the water’s surface. And instantly, my grandfather stands beside me, the creases of his forehead arching upwards into his receding hairline. Fragmented memories from a million years ago coalesce into mere seconds of laughter and love… He lives only five minutes from here, a short drive.
It may be solitude I want, but is it solitude I need?
Today, 3:09 AM
Tom snores softly from the sofa where he had undoubtedly spent the evening waiting for my arrival. With his head lolling backwards, he seems peacefully comforted by the soothing arms of unconsciousness. Tentatively I reach out and touch his naked chest, laying my right hand flatly on his sternum. His heart beats reassuringly beneath by palm. There is no point in waking him now. Tugging gently at the ring on my finger, I place it on top of the antique coffee table his sister bought us when we’d moving in together.
I almost love him. Truly.
But Pop always said almost is the most poignant word in the English dictionary; encumbered with uncertainty, false hope and broken promises.
Yesterday, 6:54 PM
“Then tell me. How do you know if it’s real?”
“It’s real when your bones ache apart. When your lungs scream for air when they’re not with you. That’s how you know it’s real. Nowadays I barely recognise my own name but I can still remember your nana’s smile on my worst days.
Exhale.
And in that moment, I am rendered partial but ironically feel more whole; the tide quickly washing over all, until only muscle, bone and sinew remain of me for reassembly.
But at least I am free.
Yousef Hakimi is a 19-year-old hailing from Australia. In his spare time, you will find him either writing or reading. His greatest writing inspirations are Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov and David Foster Wallace.
–Foreground Photography by Jon Damaschke
–Background Photography by Ed Wojtaszek