I woke at thirty minutes past midnight to the artificial wind of the fan grazing the outer rims on my ear facing upwards. 

‘Marinate in the early morning.’ I lay there, in the bed with the fan hitting the outer sheet and outer right ear till 4:30 a.m. There is an inability to close my eyes. ‘I wish I had some frankincense to help with the fall’ It’s effectively keeping me up till I am supposed to walk the emptied and quiet streets to my friend’s place of living. I had promised her today, I would join her in watching the sunrise at Carson. As I walk to meet her, it’s so quiet my mind begins to wonder– It’s funny how 4 a.m. looks different on different people. The drunks and the early birds. One could say the same about a lot of things in life. 

The beach is quiet, and the tide is lower than I knew it could reach. It’s interesting to see all the rocks and shells gathered in clumps. They create a line allowing you to be able to tell where the waves will lap in the  later hours.

The sun rises and we stare. We stare at the sun and the water in silence for what feels like an elongated amount of time. 

As I sit in the sand, my thumb begins to dig. The underside of  my nail is working as a shovel, searching for shells. A restless search for rest, that I can not seem to achieve in a place known for just that.

Oh, the irony. 

When I lift my head up from my search on the shore to the left a crane wades. Like he had walked out of the bay’s muddied water just for me, my very own paper crane. I watch him search for breakfast. He never bends down, maybe that’s not why he’s here. 

‘It’s odd to have loved someone and not seek their love anymore. You find an unorthodox sense of relief in the knowledge that they are being loved by the people they were always meant to be loved by and that was never you.’ 

We are napping now and the sun rays warm our clothes as we lay out for her. Our arms open, welcoming the warmth. It’s so quiet, it’s almost like none of it ever happened at all.

The crane is gone when I open my eyes. He had walked silently back into the ocean, or maybe he was just a group delusion. I never heard his wings flap goodbye and the sands only occupy the footprint of seagulls. 

I called my mother in my room that afternoon, we ate grapes that morning and it reminded me of all the times of spilled grape juice. They always answer my calls, always come to collect their daughter off the tile. Despite all of our strains that sit, staggering on stilts. 

She says “maybe I have outgrown this place,” and talks about sending me to Berlin to live with Chad and Nobuko. They say the air is cleaner in Europe, maybe I will breathe better there. I let myself marinate in bed for the next 12 hours thinking of how life would change if I left…how life would change if I stayed.

How amazing it would feel to say “Sayonara!” to this shithole of a city. 

I know I can’t do that. I can’t just run down the river, away from myself again. I’m not eighteen anymore. The ladies with old faces are long gone.