I stumble down the beach, exhausted, silently savoring midnight above. Infant crabs raise tiny claws at me. Salted spray mists my face. Roiling waves crash and flow, their frothy curls assaulting my raw heels, threatening to pull me in. I spy a lone man in the distance, standing in water that rages about him. I duck behind an old log stripped of bark, wary and watching. He leans oddly — too far forward, yet not toppling over. His head swivels occasionally, like a warden of the beach, surveying the furious sea. A seagull alights upon the log beside me and spits out a fish that ...