That evening, four friends gathered for a poetry reading at a bookstore that had quietly given up pretending to be a bookstore years ago. A faded sign above its door still promised BOOKS & POETRY, but inside, the smell of espresso was stronger than the smell of paper. Shelves sagged beneath sun-bleached novels, outdated travel guides, and poetry collections no one seemed interested in buying. A cranky espresso machine hissed behind the counter while four mismatched tables occupied most of the remaining floor space.
A handful of customers drifted in and out, ordering lattes and espresso, flipping through paperbacks, and pretending to listen to the poetry. Most seemed more interested in their phones than in the poets earnestly reciting verbose junk at the back of the room. Most were more interested in their phones than in the poets reciting earnestly from the back of the room—which, Given the quality of the poetry material, that may have been the correct call.
When the reading finally ended, the four friends escaped through a side door and made their way toward the harbor. The Pacific was darkening under a fading sky, and the last sunlight stretched across the water like tarnished gold. Andrei stopped at the end of the wooden pier, listening to the sound of the waves slap against the pilings. "Eventually," he murmured, "won't we all become like worn shells as the last poem suggested?"
The other three stared at him quizzically.
Jules leaned against a weathered piling. He'd sat through the whole reading with an expression of polite amusement. However, Andrei's question caught him off guard, and he found himself gazing out at the shimmering dark instead of making a joke.
"Quelle pensée morose…" he said softly. Then, with a theatrical sigh, he added, "We're just echoes of what survives the tide—memories washed ashore, briefly noticed, and then forgotten." Jules gestured toward the distant horizon as though presenting evidence in a philosophical trial. After a moment, he let his hand fall.
Elijah snorted. He had spent most of the poetry reading trying not to laugh and had failed several times. Now he leaned back on his palms, grinning into the breeze. "Sorry," he said, "but my universal translator's on the fritz tonight."
Andrei glanced at him. "What?" Elijah shrugged. "You said something about becoming empty shells, and Jules immediately started speaking French and mourning civilization."
"I did not mourn civilization," Jules protested.
"You came dangerously close."
Elijah lifted his empty coffee cup, which he had somehow carried all the way from the bookstore. "And anyway, why so fatalistic? We're standing beside the ocean at sunset. Isn't this the part where someone's supposed to say something inspiring?" He tipped the cup upside down and gave it a disappointed shake. "Apparently, I'm out of inspiration tonight."
"Me too" Andrei added. A pregnant silence lingered between the group, broken only by the shifting water hissing against the wooden pilings of the pier. Andrei looked out at the deepening dusk, then announced, with the gravity of a man closing a philosophical debate, "I need sleep. Deep sleep. Time to hit the sack. Good night."
And with that, the group then dispersed into the quiet night, almost as if nothing of consequence occurred - just a few waves lapped against the wooden pier.