There is a certain peace, hearing the sound of the ocean, a silence forever, among the surging, roar and crash of the sea, as it reaches over the forever miles, beyond where the water meets the sky.

From where you may stand upon a beach, you may look upon an unending ocean. You may hear the primordial sounds of the earth as it, most assuredly must have, sounded when the dinosaurs wandered over the land.

It is not late. We sit by a fire; our legs crossed, dressed like disheveled animals, in shorts and tattered shirts, filled with wonder over the tropical night.

The sand is damp with evening already.

We are here three women and two men.

The sun still hot has not been quenched in the steaming ocean. It sits a red fire ball in clouds, upon an other wise unbroken sea.

Soon the fire will not burn.

We feel the animal in our soul as our lungs fill with clean fresh evening air.

In the fire the flames envelope the logs that glow, crackle, and hum. Turning first to stumps the cinder forms before our reddened eyes.

The heat from the flames draws the fevers of the day from our souls.

Wines, beers, liqueurs, they curb the tropical fevers.

It is winter now.

We are living in wooden shacks, under the coconut trees, on a ledge, in the hills, by the sea.

We sit cross-legged, on the ground, on a beach now in the coming night. We draw in the present luxuries of our animal existence, flames, and fire.

As the heat grows very high, we draw away.

Maria stocks the fire, with sticks, where it is low.

What is fire?

Is it embers? Is it the crackle, the pop or the hot rushing consuming enveloping flames?

Like breakfast with milk ... or rum.

We must smile.

Who affords Rum?

Not us!

We must lift our shackle of bones, strain some sinews and manage to muster, carry our singular frame of a carcass to a store for Rum.

"Forget it."

"Forget it?" we reply, "Not a chance."

"What else do you mix with milk?"

"Kahlua," they all shout back at me, "Don Pedro."

I look at my billfold. It is late and I grow tired.

It is late for the store, again.

A man works hard all day, he needs a nights sleep.

I return my empty billfold, to its pocket.

I pick myself up and return home, to climb into bed.