Waves Of Remembrance

The bench is warm on his old bones, as usual, the ghosts walking the beach in front of him were not. He watched the blurry, half visions of his past walk the shore as his heart rate increased.

“Maybe, I should watch from the beginning again.” His gravelly voice pushed out of his tired diaphragm and the impermanent people vanished except for one. A little boy remained, he walked the water line in street clothes and a puzzled face. The young man walked passed his older self and the old man’s heart hurt with the sudden rush of love. The kind that fills your heart so fast that your arteries swell and you feel sick. The puzzled face was because this was the first time he had ever felt love for someone.

A glance in the sun’s direction told him that he had another half hour before sunset, when he looked back the beach was full of apparitions. It was a Fourth of July celebration and he saw a small stage built down the beach to his left. The music was loud in his head, but it was far away and echoey. He surveyed the crowd for a moment with a smile on his face. He hadn’t been to a party like this in years, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t again at his age. The party wasn’t why his mind brought these ghosts back to life, and he knew exactly where to look.

Turning his body and looking behind him he saw two ghost teens in the shrubbery. She was pulling sand spurs from her bare feet and he was too in love to notice the spurs in his feet. The two of them locked eyes and the old man saw through the leaves, their hands clasped tight.

Pivoting his body back to face the beach he looked at his old wrinkled hand and could almost feel her hand in his again. A tear landed on his clenched fist when something bumps him and he scouts over on the bench to look at the two ghosts making out beside him and with a startled smile he looks forward again.

The crowd is gone and now there are just the two of them, a picnic set up with a bottle of merlot as the centerpiece. A smile came over his face remembering that it was their first official date and his first legally purchased bottle of alcohol. He watched as his ghostly doppelganger accidentally spilled some of the wine on his shirt and both of them laughed heartily. As the old man touched the spot where the wine landed on his chest the picnic was gone.

With a crashing wave, he was proposing to her on one knee and she had jumped for joy. A close of his eyes to clear the blurry tears and when he opened them he saw a hazy wedding made up of well-dressed ghosts. She was see-through, but she still was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

A glance at his wedding ring later and he was looking up at the pair of them chasing their kids around. The children looked at her with such love, and he looked at her with more. The old man breathed out heavily as his wrinkled chest twitched with each sob. He put his head in his hands and then looked back up to see a version of himself that looked as old as he is now. He held hands with her and had to walk very slowly to not walk too fast for her weakening body.

He raised his hand at the two of them, his heart hurt worse than it had ever felt. Then they blew away on the wind and were gone. He couldn’t believe it, he was now looking at an empty beach. With an exhale, he tried to catch his breath, and then he looked to his right and saw her sitting beside him. She was only half of a blurry vision, but she was there, smiling at him.

His heart nearly gave out when she put her hand on his and then she disappeared leaving her urn sitting next to him.