Chapter 3
What could have been, will be again.
A dampness hangs over the pier. A man leans over the rotting wood railing, stares into a blackness that swallows the orange lamplight. His eyes are reddened from a lack of sleep. The small worries of college days are big enough to keep him up at night.
The beach is quiet.
“What was once, could have been, could be again,” he whispers.
His name is not Grin yet. His name, at this moment, is still Grind. He feels like a rusty cog, its teeth frayed, clicking clicking clicking. “What was once once was what was once once was what was.”
Grind turns the words over on themselves, stares into the welcoming black hovering over the Pacific, and wishes he remembered how to pray.
“You start by saying ‘Dear God,’ or ‘Our Heavenly Father,’ if I recall,” a man with no past says to the man with no future.
Grind turns, looks at the man. He wears a white robe, and fuzzy white bath slippers. Light blue pajamas peek out from underneath the untied robe.
“When did you get here?” Grind asks, “and, more importantly, who are you?”
“A better question to ask is ‘Why am I?’” the man in a robe says, laughing. His face wrinkles around his lips and the corners of his eyes when he laughs. He has laughed a lot in his life, apparently.
“Okay, why are you?” Grind says, playing this game.
“Why not?” the man says. “Might as well be here, if everyplace is the same place.”
A seagull flutters in and out of existence between dull orbs of orange light. His cry penetrates the darkness, however, and reassures Grind that the bird exists between the small moments of illumination.
“You see it too?” the man asks. “The gull, I mean.”
“Yes,” Grind says. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“His name is Brink. He represents a border.”
“Who are you?” Grind asks again.
“My name is all consonants. You couldn’t say it.”
“Can you say it?” Grind asks.
The man laughs. “Not really.”
“Then why is a name you can’t say your name at all?”
The man puts his hands in his robe pockets, steps towards Grind. “Brink,” he says, his eyes still on Grind, “take the unnecessary away from Grind.”
Grind feels fear and apprehension. “How do you know my name?” Grind says.
“Because I know what your name isn’t, and it isn’t Grind.”
Brink swoops down and bites the -d off Grin. Grin feels naked, exposed, terrified that his whole name might fall through the gap which the -d leaves behind.
Dizzy, Grin grabs the rotting wooden railing for leverage. He tries to breathe. It hurts his head.
“That’s it,” the man says, “you’re beginning to unend.”
And, with those words, a white noise and static snow garble the night.
