The Sea Home

Home from the sea The night in the hallway paled into a yellowish screen showing a black& white home- movie ca.1963 a memory time machine had sent him back to his years of youth to meet people long since gone. A family sat around a dinner table with people he knew. His 125-year-old father was not there; he never was a nectar-drinking Colibri, exotic as a Christmas present never given, the one in a toy shop, a red firetruck with wooden wheel. And him? He had gone to the sea, and when he returned it was not the same as before; a certain distance had emerged after that whenever he came home from the sea, the distance from them was ever wider. They had known him as a boy but had not seen him grow. He sat in the living room, rootless, a stranger they Somehow were related and spoke politely to him because they knew he would soon be leaving again. A nurse shook him gently; are you awake? Yes, mother, I'm home from the sea.