Jet Lagged

He realized that he hadn't been sleeping and so he pushed himself up out of bed. In the glow of the ancient digital clock he could only make out vague shapes and pointed himself in the direction of the bathroom. He chuckled as he imagined what he must look like, taking half steps, arms outstretched so he wouldn't bump into the door frame and he wished he had paced off the distance when they got in last night. He walked into a corner anyway and swore as he rubbed his jammed fingers and she said, "What are you doing up?"
"Go back to sleep.", he said, "I'm going for a walk, I'm too restless."
In the bathroom he pulled on the shorts he'd worn the night before, still damp from the rain, and he wondered where his shoes were.

The heavy door made an audible click and she blinked into the darkness. It was typical that the more he tried to be quiet, the more noise he made. He was gone now, though, and she could finally go back to sleep. It made no sense to her that he couldn't sleep in; the flight had been long and uncomfortable and she didn't care if she slept all day. That's what vacations are for, she thought. She wondered what he was going to do but soon lost contact with the thought as her dreams super-imposed themselves on her and she slept again.

The light was unlike anything he'd seen before, haunted and surreal. He looked up at the trees lightly framed against the sky and slowly drifted to a stop on the gravel path to the water. The taste of salt in the air and the warmth of the breeze was so unlike anything he'd felt before and he wondered why it had taken him so long to make up his mind to come here. He hadn't wanted to at all, suspicious and condescending, he'd joked for weeks about getting sick from the water and spending the whole time locked in the bathroom. Now that he was here he wondered if he could leave.

The ocean was calm and iron gray in the pre-dawn light, but he could sense, just beyond the horizon, the sun ready to burst on him. He felt like he was ten years old, waiting for Christmas morning, waiting for the wonder and the mystery and smiled to himself as he stood, hands in his pockets, ready for the world to bloom. The quiet wash of the waves was more subdued than he had imagined and that made it more frightening to him, somehow, as he contemplated the dangers of the strange animals he knew lived out there. He closed his eyes and let his other senses tell him about the sand, fine and soft, under his feet and the birds, slowly coming to their senses in the trees behind him, and the muted noises filtering down from the main building, of the morning shift already at work making sure that paradise was plastered all over the dining hall.

He wasn't surprised when he felt her hand slip into his or to feel her head leaning against his shoulder blade. As tired as she was, she wasn't immune to his child like excitement and wanted to be there as the sun broke the horizon, yellow-orange and impossibly bright, on the first day; the first time he'd ever seen the ocean.