Beaches

Part 2

He had never given much thought to boredom in the past. When he'd considered the end of the world - which he didn't do often, but it had come up from time to time – he'd always thought there would be plenty to keep him occupied. There would be gathering food and water, searching for safety and companionship, fighting when needed. The idea that he could find the apocalypse boring would have seemed absurd. But that was exactly what it was.

It had first come up towards the end of the first year. Without the competition of 70 million other people, there was plenty of food to go around. There was no need to fight; if you didn't get on with someone, you could just pack up and move on.

There were people who wanted to hurt others just for the the sake of it. But there were enough good people willing to stand together, that the problem rarely stuck around for long.

At least they provided a distraction though. Once there was no one left to fight with, there was nothing to do except work on a farm, or scavenge for food in the cities. There was never enough work to go around and he found himself with less to do than when he'd had to work for a living. It was not enough to take his mind off of her.

He'd read books, gone drinking, visited all the places that had been off-limits before and learned all the secrets they contained. He'd done everything he could think of and in the end it hadn't been enough. In the middle of the night he still found himself waking from nightmares.

(Why didn't you come to me Jacob?)

In the end, he'd had to leave.

Jacob hadn't been the first, and he wouldn't be the last. Transience was common. Few people thought it strange that he would turn his back on the community he had helped to build, but to him it had felt monumental.

It took a week to get everything ready; to round up the people he wanted to say goodbye to and gather the supplies he thought he would need. Once that was done, he just started walking and soon enough, the community was behind him and the open road ahead.

Now he was at the beach and he could no longer pretend that boredom and nostalgia were his motivations. He hadn't spent six months walking from town to town, relying on the kindness of strangers, just to look at the sea.

It was almost too dark to see by the time he turned and made his way back to the rocks. He stumbled across the sand, up the slope and got to the road. He considered checking into the Old Western but decided against; it reminded him too much of awkward teenage trysts with the summer girls and, after all, there was no shortage of places for him to spend the night.