fiction 

Candy-colored pinwheel parasols laze about, opulently idle- rather than stand up straight and throw some shade like a real do-right of an upstanding umbrella, these playboys are reclining like beached whales on the boardwalk, in a funnel-cake-and-warm-beer scented cloud of festivity and overall amicable summertime vibes. A soul-singer in a sapphire blue plastic blazer belts one for a crowd of 7; they say a whale has a heart the size of a Volkswagen, but if anybody could rival that kinduva heart it’s our boardwalk diva here- somebody book this guy for a run at the Bellagio! A mean mugger perches himself between two fisherman, leaning on the railing between trays of warm fishbait to pose for a selfie— ooh la la, wait- he goes in for the pouty pooch, drawing his Brooklyn brim over his brows and puckering out those lips— that’s take 1 folks, take 2, take 3… I think he’s laying some bait of his own here on the ‘gram and I wonder who he’s trying to impress. There’s a lady out there for you sir, and one of these pics is sure to win her heart! A cobalt blue parrot preens and squawks, its beady little eyes rolling back in its bird-brain, gazing back at you crazily without saying a lick of sense. shwooooop, the coaster skirts along the rails in a whoosh of ocean air, and I walk all loose-limbed and bendy-kneed, soaking up the mise en scene and loving every bit of it. A caricaturist hawks portraits- the man’ll give you boobs like Dolly Parton for $15 a pop. The Whac-a-Mole machine’s buzzing and whirring like a robot in ecstasy, achieving ever greater rapture as tourists bash it’s buttons with a large rubber mallet. I skirt the arcade, preferring the main boardwalk with the musicians where I can see the waves. The sea is glittering, saturnine- I think, smiling through her melancholy. I always think of pollution when I look at the water. I feel her pain, and I love the Ocean. I feel sad for her, and admire her will to be. She is abused. A swarthy sarodiya draws eerie melodies from his strings- glissandi which-conjured-shimmer and dissipate, like the twilight which momentarily glazes a smattering of gold upon the form of the cresting waves.