I sat upon a steel fence stained with algae and mottled with pockets of rust. Next to me was Jones. He stood squinting into the quiet waters as if through exertion of will alone he could excavate some answer from those calamitous depths. Above us the sun hung bloated and teetering on its meridian and at our feet the crabs we had caught popped and crackled in the heat as they fought like packs of wild dogs for scraps of raw meat.
“Everything will be fine” I said.
He answered simply by raising his gaze to look straight at me with his big sad eyes like two perfect pebbles of understanding. A westerly wind goaded the reeds that surrounded us into a melancholic chorus of sorts and we soon left that place knowing that we would never return, and if we did we would be changed and different men. I did look once back at that scene as we quietly stepped away but saw nothing that brought any comfort and I understood why Jones never looked back at all.