Identity.

Do you have one, he asked himself. There seems to be too many of you. Which one tells of absolute truth? Maybe, and this scares you, the answer is none...

...isn't that a good thing? Carte blanche? The filling in of the blank page...but what if your ink is white? White on white? Or it's black, but your blind?

He picked up the tube of coral. Perforated. Pink. He dropped it back into...the ocean's edges kiss the skirt of shore. There are bubbles of intoxication from malt playing like children behind his eyes. He bobs his head like a silly dog trapped on the dashboard of a silly running car.

You drink too much, take it easy...she said.

...from behind him the voice sounded like his conscience.

He burped, that was his reply, his cuss to her...advice?

Why can't people understand when they are not liked. Oh yeah, this one wasn't one of those, those ordinary folk, this one, like you...like you...?

Ever thought about your identity? he said.

Yeah, she said, which surprised him; yeah, like what?

How? What are your thoughts? he said.

It was close to twilight. Was it the world that developed in us these unanswerable moods of intense surveys of meaning during this magical time of the day? She wasn't sure. Her feet, submerged in the soup of her birth, ancient water. Her feet greets our Great Mother, its oldest womb.

She yawns, and supplies him her thoughts: To really have an identity. A real identity. Everyone else must die. If you're a man, every man; if you're a woman, every woman.

His penis alerted him of a possible hard-on.

She continued: there are way too many peeps out there...every man, let's just use person, so I don't keep switching genders for political correctness's sake. Every person out there, each one we meet, we absorb, their images are branded into our brains; their actions are...copied, to copy is to memorize; their speech becomes our speech. There are too many people in the world. How do you know you are not just a patchwork of these retained reflections? How do you know you are you? Isn't that your question?

Yes, you stupid bitch, he told himself, where'd you come from, I was here, minding my own business, I was deep; and now here you are mirroring my thoughts. Those are my thoughts. Mine!

Yes, he said.

Yeah, she said, I thought so.

He fought it at first, but it was no use, really, he knew, so he allowed his urge to win him over, and he sat down beside "the bitch."

Hi, he said.

They swapped names.

Mind? he said, but his fingers were already on the burning joint.

Go ahead. But she pulled her hand away, which startled him; and she, smoothly, like a jazz dancer's stock move, suavely turned the burning head of the stick toward her, and her lips; her red lips, red from the butcher shop glow from on high; she opened those red lips, moist from the soft blanket of imperceptible sea-foam, to envelope and lock on the burning head; okay, he got the idea, and leaned forward---shotgun!

Bhooosssh, bhoooossh, bhooooosshh, went their motions, went the sea and shore and sky.

It's like everything is beating. Everything has a hearbeat. He confessed this.

I know, she said, and slipped her hand over his; their hands both, these two that touched was on a rock bed on the shore, it should be high tide, but that tide was late; maybe it too got stoned, drunk and lost, maybe it too questioned its purpose, though its purpose seems quite clear and straight.

Isn't that how they all start? Clear and straight?

Are you serious, he challenged, and politely swept up his hand under hers; what was that about? Manners, he ain't too good with.

Yeah.

Yeah, he parroted...and left it at that a while...he needed to pause, for effect, and maybe she knew it, who cares.

There's a whole party behind us, enjoying themselves; happy people.

Uh-huh, she replied.

Happy, he repeated...I hate happy people.

He returned his hand under her palm, her palm was warm.