(Untitled)

[inktest]

Walter was moving. He was moving without moving. His muscles were still and tense and he felt as though he'd just vomited. His eyes watered and his mouth tasted like a city puddle and his stomach - his abdominal muscles specifically - were aching. They moved in a vibration, telling him that they had been severely neglected. His body, once muscled

Comments

[1st_zack]

"Now that's the way to enjoy life on a tropical island," Zack commented cheerfully to the man sunbathing. "Hey, I'm jealous, buddy. I've never been able to really live the quiet kind of life."

"Of course if any place were good for second chances, right?" Zack winked as he carried on a one-sided conversation. "I don't look to waste this one."

[inktest]

Murmurs. Sounds. Waves? No. Voice. Walter allowed his left eye to open and look at the approaching culprit. Taking note of the man and without saying anything but feeling an intense disliking for conversation, Walter closed his eye and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"I do. Leave me alone. I'm baking."

[1st_zack]

For a moment, Zack considered the phrase. It seemed an odd place to be baking. He was about to ask what the other was baking.

"You're just going to give up? Rough time with the magic stuff?" he asked. "There are probably faster ways to go than laying in the sun."

[inktest]

The words would have made sense if Walter hadn't been delirious from a lack of water and an excess of sunlight. His skin felt hot and tight against his bones and every movement, no matter how subtle, felt like an unbearable feat.

"There isn't magic. It's all science. It's all..." Walter trailed off. "There's...explanation...find it..." He was too exhausted to speak properly.

[halfafinger]

Margot stepped into the path of the sunlight, looking down at Walter as her shadow fell across his face.

"Aren't you hot?" she asked; a woman wearing a heavy fur coat.

[inktest]

Like a tower, the woman stood over him. At first, Walter didn't see who it was. The sun had cast such a shadow, the stranger looked like a black, silhouette. Almost apocalyptic.

But then he heard her voice and knew it was Margot.

"That's the point," he replied simply, allowing himself some pleasure from the coolness of the shadow. It was thwarting his plan of boil, but felt damn nice.

[halfafinger]

Margot withdrew a hand from one of the pockets of her coat, an island-rolled cigarette clasped by two of her fingers. She placed it in her mouth and took a box of matches out of her other coat, striking one on her wooden finger and applying the flame to the end of the slim white cylinder between her lips.

She inhaled deeply, still looking thoughtfully down at Walter. She spoke on the exhale, smoke curling out along with her voice.

"Why?"

[inktest]

Blinking, Walter focused on Margot and saw the smoke. The smell, the sight, all of it made him feel worse. Having no food in his stomach and very little water left in his body didn't sit well with the smell of the smoke swirling in the air. Any smell, no matter how strong, would have set him off he imagined.

"I hate this place."

[intrinsicworth]

Glen ambled along the beach taking what some might have referred to as his daily constitutional. Glen privately though that the term made him sound absolutely ancient even at his age, but nevertheless it was a good description. Kojak as usual loped ahead of him and circled back occasionally before bounding off once more so it was the dog who found the man first, baking in the sun, and Glen who shooed him away.

"Kojak, mind yourself! Away from that man and leave him in piece!"

Glen himself look exasperated but unsurprised. "You'll have to forgive the mutt. Doesn't exactly know his manners."

[inktest]

"No one does here," Walter said as he remained still. Normally he would have leapt up, hands in fists, ready to make sure the mangy mutt didn't come near him. Now, however, he remained still. On the beach. In the heat.

"Keep it away. Or I'll eat him," There was very little control over what came out of his mouth. Walter was too exhausted and too delusional and too resigned to baking to death in the sun to know or care what words meant.

[intrinsicworth]

Speaking of manners, he thought, but instead of saying so Glen simply eyed the disgruntled man, concerned at first and then amused. He didn't smile. "It doesn't look as though you'll be up to chasing after him just this moment, though I've certainly been wrong before," said Glen who despite what he'd said was keept the dog well away from the man on the beach.

He might have ambled away himself and minded his own manners, but that wasn't particularly Glen's style. He wasn't very good at doing what was expected of him. "You got a reason your baking yourself to a crisp?"

[inktest]

Walter nodded at the man's question. Swallowing hard, sucking down what little spit was in his mouth, he opened his eyes and, still on the ground, looked over to the stranger.

"Of course there's a reason. Gotta have a reason to want to burn to death."