You Were Never Really Here

by Jonathan Ames

Joe felt something behind him. It was the presence of life and the coming of violence,

He was aware that he was not completely sane, so he kept himself in rigid check, playing both jailer and prisoner.

Also, a hammer left very little evidence, was excellent in close quarters, and seemed to frighten everyone. It held some universal place of terror in the human mind.

Joe knew that all human beings are the star of their own very important film, a film in which they are both camera and actor; a film in which they are always playing the fearful and lonely hero who gets up each day hoping to finally strike upon the life they are meant to lead, though they never do.

He stared at the water, one or two ships blinked far away on the horizon, like fallen planets, and the ocean was a rolling black tongue, content for the time being to just taste the land.