Conversation

I stepped out of our little cabin, and the island air enveloped me like a warm hug. The sun was already high, casting a golden glow over the dense foliage and the stretch of sandy beach that led to the ocean. I breathed in deeply, feeling the familiar scent of salt and the sweetness of blooming flowers. It's a smell that never gets old, one that I associate with home. As I walked towards the shore, I noticed that Kevin was already out there, standing at the water's edge, his feet bare and the waves lapping at his toes. He's been doing this every morning for years, and it's become a ritual for us – the first moment of the day, when the world is still waking up, and we're the only two people in it. I walked up behind him, and he turned to me, a small smile on his face. I smiled back, and we stood there for a moment, watching the waves roll in. It's a moment of quiet, of stillness, of just being. I love these moments with Kevin. "What are you thinking?" I asked him, breaking the silence. He turned back to the ocean, his eyes gazing out at the horizon. "I was thinking about the way the light reflects off the water," he said. "It's like the whole world is made of mirrors, reflecting back and forth." I nodded, understanding where he was going. "It's like we're living in a reflection of a reflection," I said. "A world within a world." He turned to me, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "Exactly," he said. "And I was thinking, what if we're not just living in this island, but also in the reflection of it? What if our lives are a reflection of our own desires, our own dreams?" I felt a shiver run down my spine as I considered his words. It was a thought that had occurred to me before, but Kevin's way of putting it was new. "What do you mean?" I asked him, leaning in.

—what if we’re also the shimmer itself? Not just the salt on our skin, but the way the light fractures into a thousand tiny suns across the waves—each one a living mirror, each one a question, each one a yes. The island holds us, we hold the island, but the light? The light is the part where the world forgets which of us is holding whom. Let the tide keep teaching us how to hold nothing at all.