I'm sitting at the pub, somewhere quieter. It's right after sunset when the sky isn't orange, but it's not quite dark yet. I'm sitting in a “casual but still trying to look cool and I want people to notice me but don't want people to notice that I want them to notice me” way, as you do.

I see her turn a corner, long legs, not super skinny but in a way I love, medium length skirt, cardigan, tank top under it. I notice a hair on her head, i want nothing more than to brush it off her face while she looks into my eyes, my eyes wander down to look at her cleavage “man I'm a fucking creep”, I look down on the ground as if I was scanning up to down in her general direction in case someone has been watching me. I think to myself why anyone would watch me, I don't look particularly good, in fact, I believe I'm quite ugly. I chuckle slightly while a nail is driven in my heart, “why would she look my way” looking at her hurts now, reminds me of how I will never have her or anything like her. I look at my pint, mostly empty with one gulp left. I take it, warm and wheaty, not particularly nice but it's worse to waste beer. As I'm lowering my glass our eyes meet, not even for a quarter second as she's walking by. I feel myself shrink up and a pain in my chest, I immediately look down. Maybe 1 second after she passes as if to confirm my own lustful worthlessness I briefly look at her ass. “Pretty good” I thought to myself then looked at my empty pint.

My friend enters with two pints

He sits down and I take a drink

“Any women?” I say to him to make conversation

“No, not really. You?”

I look back, she's gone.

“Nah me neither.”

There was a curious smell coming off the beach, even when you were standing right at the shoreline. A smell of ash. I mentioned this to Lakin. “Really? …I don’t smell anything but kelp.”

But of course he wouldn’t, and we were both cognizant of that fact and of many others like it. We walked on, giving each of the swans a wide berth. We could hear thunder. He asked, “Is it helping?”

“I don’t think so.”

I felt very guilty, given that I was the one who had told him tearfully during one of our arguments that expanses made a difference to some individuals. My mother, in the time that I knew her, had always claimed that staying indoors or attempting to hide from the moon were false remedies, even triggers. Because I feared for my marriage, mining her rage for the truth had become my calling in the last six months. But this afternoon, I couldn’t evade the awareness that it was turning out to be a fool’s errand.

“Don’t worry,” said Lakin as he crouched to pick up a cockle shell.

We already had several of these. They sat on almost every single one of our window sills - his private religion.

I said, “I don’t want to go missing again, but the person I’m really worried about is you.”

This was the truth, but Lakin predictably shrugged it off. The sun was setting, but the storm had not yet started.

The measure of a person's taste in amassing, is displayed excruciatingly by the collections on their side table. By this standard the table will be overflowing. I wake up every morning and have a void filled look at the table. It is not a dining or a foyer table. All tables in the home can be pretentious, most often they are. It displays something to the guests. So, at first, I didn’t want to get it. After much mess in the room, I put it in the corner next to my bed. Whatever I crave must be available on that table. I display just the right amount of goods, all else I tuck under my bed. Everything that I experience, purchase, am gifted, find, smell- all of it finds its way to the side table.

How much can it hold? Haven't we all dumped on our side tables? Think, think.

If they could speak, they'd say, “we want a light existence.” What's on display you ask? It's decked with books, trinkets, a candle, candies, a wrist watch, lighter and two cigarettes, pens, roses, letters from lovers, markers, perfumes, oils, mask packs, wet wipes, reading glasses, keys, a bottle of wine, bindi’s, tablet's and rusty photographs. THE FACT IS, my side table is borrowed and I have to return it one day. The collectibles must be shed and decluttered. And after I return it, I'll be saturated- by a vague sense of emptiness.

But then, must we have the side table or not? I have the answer, dear reader: get the tiny side table. Thus we will have space open enough to put the tender things we accumulate, all over the cloistered room.