The grassy bluff and the peeling red-barked arbutus. Waves crashing on the crumbling slatey point. Gulf Island perfect. Paradise.

In the tent we're escaping the mosquitoes. Toes... his on mine. Put there purposefully.

I respond, I cannot help it. I hug him fiercely and smell him with conviction. An unshakable belief in something without need for proof or evidence. I believe that we can be in love without ever saying it, doing anything about it.

I am happy right now.

It ends, that brief nothing. Tangled toes and noses and miles of sweatshirts and fleeces.

In the moonlight (was there even a moon?) I clamber down the rocky point. Candle flickers in my hand. Wedge the glowing green glass in a rock, to mark my towel and clothes.

Shaking, the waves are so big, vodka dizzy in my viens. Where the waves break there's brilliant green phosphorescence. Green diamonds falling from the ocean surface into the black oblivion below.

I dive in and surface and yelp in delight and fear and wonder... exciting and passionate and excruciatingly emotional. Shooting stars above and falling stars below. If I drowned right then I'd have had an open-mouthed smile on my face and my eyes would have been so happy wrinkled in the corners.

Brief nothing turned into brief everything. Life is a brief everything.