Beached

The playground is an island in the middle of the muddy green field.

“We're like lifeguards,” says Alec to the woman next to him on the bench. He winks but the woman does not smile. Alec thinks she isn't old enough to have two children playing with his son on the climbing frame. Her leggings reflect light as if wet.

Women used to smile at him. Salesman's charm his wife called it. “The wife's at work,” he says.

“Grandkid?” asks the woman.

“No,” he says, dry mouthed, out of his element.

“It's been a year since I lost my business,” he says. “The money just went, like a tide going out. Each week it got further away. All young folk with families. The office was like a beach empty desks and unwatered plants all washed up. I waited for the water to come back and float us but it didn't. I couldn't save them.”

The woman moves away, turns her shoulder. He wonders if she can even hear him.

“My contacts book dried up my hands. Just telephones ringing in empty offices.”

Bloated, mouth salty and dry, Alec shouts to his son to be careful but he is already falling.