This is the final piece of transient. I thought it’d be appropriate to end it this way since I no longer felt capable of producing a piece on this theme every now and then and didn’t want to leave the series hanging. This final piece is very personal.

~

Sei

We are quiet as we walk the length of the beach. There seems nothing left to say. A light breeze blows, caressing my hair. I slow to tuck my hair behind the ear, taking in the calm sea before me. He senses that I have fallen behind, pauses, turns around.

“Something interesting?” he asks.

“Just the view,” I gesture at the blue expanse. “Maybe it will look different tomorrow.”

He smiles, folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t think so. Still the same blue waves, still the same horizon, the brown sand, the grey rocks.”

I tilt my head. “You think so?”

“I see this beach everyday,” he laughs.

I shake my head. “It is precisely because we see these things everyday that we don’t realise they have changed. Some changes will be minute, will escape our attention until it’s too late, but the fact remains that they have evolved from their previous state, and they will keep evolving.”

He falls silent, slants his gaze towards the horizon. Small waves curl against our bare feet, chilling our toes. I shiver despite the warmth of the sunshine.

He notices me rubbing my arms for heat. “Cold?”

I nod. He closes the distance, takes my hands in his, warms them. I smile. In the distance, we see a ship sail serenely by before it disappears from sight.

“Change?” he queries, with a wry arch of the eyebrow.

“Change,” I reply, a tinge of sadness evident. “Some things pass us by in the twinkling of an eye. No matter how much we try to catch it, try to make it stay, it doesn’t.”

He lapses into silence again. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

“Maybe. But we don’t know that for sure.”

He gazes at me. “Don’t think too much,” he advises.

I feel myself tearing. “You always say that.”

He leans forward, presses his lips against mine. Brief, tender, does not linger. He smoothes my hair from my face, smiles at me before he turns around and walks away.

©2006