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The Young Man and the Sea


I sit at the edge of the beach with a bottle of wine and profound thoughts in my head.
In the darkness I think of the emptiness of the sea.
I can only hear the waves crash against the shore.

But the sea is teeming with life.
Life is in abundance in what seems to be the darkest and loneliest of places.
Such is the contradiction of our existence!

Just then a drunken man takes a piss over my shoulder.
The unmistakable feeling of relief hits him as he sighs in certain approval.
My profound thoughts are reduced to the more urgent thought of remaining piss free.

Fuck it.
I throw the near empty wine bottle into the sea.
There is no message, time, or tiny ship in this bottle.
Only salt water, wine, and the memory of profound thoughts.
Profound thoughts which, like all profound thoughts, are servants to a stream of piss.

- Tyrrhenian Sea, Tuscany, Italy

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