Breathless

the tsunami, and he had known what to do: Wait for the great wave, the drowning rush.
    The incident in the rest area changed everything. He no longer knew what he should do.
    He sat in the surf while the day waned. If the sea would not keep its promise to him, then perhaps it would wash into him an understanding of what he had seen, what it meant, and what he must do now instead of waiting for the wave.
    Twice people in the rest area high above shouted down to him. He didn’t acknowledge them. Later, two young men descended from the bluff, either to see if they could help him or, more likely, to see if they could have some cruel fun with him. As they approached, one of them said, “Hey, dude, where’s your surfboard?”
    When he turned to look up at them, they halted at the sight of his face. Their attitude and expressions changed, and they backed off a few steps.
    As the two conferred in whispers, Tom raised his hands out of the surging water and showed them his huge fists.
    The young men retreated to the bluff and did not return.
    After a while, Tom moved farther back on the beach, so the surf broke at his feet.
    Neither twilight nor nightfall brought understanding.
    The moon silvered the froth of the breaking surf.
    Far out on the black sea, ship lights moved north, moved south, grew brighter, then dwindled.
    As if stepping out of time from a prehuman world, a great blue heron of singular size appeared to the south of him, a prehistoric presence almost five feet tall, wading through the shallow purling water of the collapsed surf, feeding as it progressed.
    Heron often trumpeted during a hunt. This one stalked silently. The bird stopped near Tom’s feet and regarded him with its tiny moon-monocled eyes. Instead of spreading its immense wings and taking flight or issuing its threatening cry of aggression, it paused only briefly and then dismissively moved past him, continuing north along the shore, spearing small fish with its sharp bill.
    The moon, the ships, the hunting heron seemed to have the same message for Tom Bigger:
Rise, go, keep moving
.
    Suddenly chilled, he stripped out of his wet garments and left them on the beach. He dressed in one of his two changes of clothes: thick socks, walking shoes, jeans, and a denim shirt.
    He packed six pints of tequila in his backpack and left the rest of his supply buried in the sand at the back of the cave, although he suspected that he would never return.
    Because his bedroll was worn and greasy, he left it in the cave, but he packed his tin of sinsemilla joints and the pistol.
    With no destination yet in mind, he took his direction from the traffic on the sea. At the moment, two clusters of ship lights were visible. Both vessels were sailing south, so Tom Bigger walked south toward the town.
    He didn’t believe the town would be his ultimate destination.On arrival, perhaps he would receive a sign by which he would know where to go from there.
    Sometimes he made decisions based on dreams that seemed to be predictive, as when he followed a dream to a cave by the sea, hoping for an obliterating tidal wave. The dreams in which he believed and from which he took direction were always death dreams, foreboding but at the same time alluring.
    He never previously expected to see signs and portents in the waking world. Perhaps he would see none now. But the incident in the deserted rest area had upended him. He would not be surprised if at least he sensed being guided by mundane things—like blue herons and distant ships—that suddenly seemed to have greater significance and require interpretation.
    The damp, compacted sand underfoot. The vast night-shrouded sea to his right. The sky hard and cold but stippled with stars. To his left, the land, the highways and the cities, the people and their pain, the infinite possibilities, the unspeakable horrors, the world long lost to him, everything that might have been for him but never was, perhaps now his future.

Thirty

C ammy on the footstool, holding Puzzle on her lap, started with the furry ears, the shape of which reminded her of calla lilies, and proceeded down the neck to the shoulders, working her fingers all the way into the undercoat, massaging the creature’s sleek muscles. She was surprised by what she found—or, rather, by what she didn’t find.
    “I’m not feeling a tick anywhere. Not one. And she doesn’t seem to have any fleas, either.”
    Grimacing, Grady said, “I didn’t think about ticks and fleas