Her name was Eva, inexplicably. And she existed, for our purposes, entirely within her immediate consciousness, which was bordered on two sides by the horizon, and she had her back, when we find her, to the other two. One horizon was the ocean, and one horizon was land.

It was true, now, she could see the vanishing point, and if she concentrated she could catch things in the act of vanishing; not moving but simply being less clear the farther they were from her.

And the sky seemed like a big blue dome, like a huge bowl flipped upside down, blocking out the real sky. And under that bowl Eva stood, facing west, the sea to her left, watching things vanish.

On the right horizon, far in front of her, she perceived something different, maybe mountains, but they were too far to see; she did not pause to consider them but if she had, she might have registered the vague feeling that they were accessible to her, if she chose to go that way. But it did not register so in effect she did not have the choice at all.

Stuck, then, as she was, on the beach, she found her feet planted solidly in the sand, until she decided to move them, in which case she found she was perfectly free to do so.

Thus Eva is isolated in her unexplained state on a beach, and no one else is near.



Then she was seated on a piano bench, positioned squarely in front of a grand piano, on the same beach and presumably in the same spot. Now she was facing the ocean, on which wave after wave rolled forward. While inspecting the keys, she was interrupted by the sound, first she thought of sea gulls crying, and then of a man calling. Immediately she began to play; her fingers swept over the keys effortlessly and almost soundlessly; the music was there, but only in the context of the waves and the man's cries for help. As she listened to her playing, she listened to his calls; while transfixed by her hands she could see his passive body being curled around, over and under the waves, far out to sea. She heard a gull's sorry shriek and froze; the sound of the waves continued to roar, urging her to play, but her thoughts broke free and she desperately searched for the drowning man. The waves instilled in her the desire (without a desire, really the command) to accompany this man's death, to make his last moments music. And when he was gone hers would become the performance, and she would learn that no one was watching or listening, but that one much become accustomed to a singular performance.

But he was not gone yet, and Eva struggled with herself to decide whether to go to him with the marginal chance of saving him, or to stay and improvise the soundtrack of his death, to relinquish, on his behalf, any hope of rescue, but to ensure that his last moments were filled with beauty, to decide for him the melody that would embody his passing.

The choice was made for her, by whom it is unsaid. She fought against the anxiety that he did not choose his own song. The thought plagued her and pushed all music out of her mind, so that the piano fell silent, as did his cries. Desperately she played the first thing she thought of, a melody that was already written, and she could not remember how it ended. Still ravaged by the tragedy that it was her song imposed on his death with no agency of his, the sound, the piano and the cries, faded into the ocean roar, which is contained in a sea shell.