Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again.He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him.The old man was dreaming about the lions.
“Hot and with plenty of milk and sugar in it.”
“I believe it,”the boy said.
“I know how to care for them. In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.”
“I'll bring the food and the papers,”the boy said.“Rest well,old man.I will bring stuff from the drugstore for your hands.”
“I didn't know sharks had such handsome,beautifully formed tails.”
Finally he put the mast down and stood up.He picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road.He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.
He could feel he was inside the current now and he could see the lights of the beach colonies along the shore.He knew where he was now and it was nothing to get home.
“I didn't either,”her male companion said.
“Did they search for me?”
“Maybe three.Maybe more.”
That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbor.