by Lorette C. Luzajic

We were on the outskirts of Libson. We walked and walked and walked, when we were still allowed to walk outside. The day was long and gray and the mist rolled down the hills from the castles to the coast, down from Sintra onto the silver strip of shore. A few grills were set up in the sand, and women were selling sardines. We watched the surfers riding steely waves. You gathered glass and barnacles, collecting them in a blue jar. And I tossed someone’s broken sunglasses back into the sea. The sun was bobbing red behind the day, playing shy on the other side of the clouds. I loved watching you raise your face to the sky, reaching to touch it. I couldn’t believe that you found me, and that I was here beside you. Maybe we would never go back, that’s what you were thinking or hoping. The world was about to fall apart, close in on itself, but there was no way we could know. We did not duck to dodge the dendrites of disease; there were no masks, no fears of contamination, no signs warning us to keep our distance from everyone else. All that was true was the sea and the sky, a paper bag of pastéis de nata, and pale frost slivers of flotsam beach glass, like moonstone gifts spangled across the shore.