Today we should have been flying back from our holiday at the sea, hair dried, skin scorched, sun in our blood, sun singing in our dreams.

We should have been waving goodbye from the windows of the plane, promising ourselves we wouldn’t forget and that we would come again. The palm trees should have been greyed in the failing light, whipping in the dusted wind of sunfall.

Should have been. We should have been. We should have been looking forward through the sunset-tinted shades of our contentedness, our unexcited happiness, looking forward to our future, our future together, our future continuing.

I should have been looking, I should have been watching, I should have been paying attention. I should have been careful.

I’m sorry.

I’ll come back and visit you. I’ll talk to you. I’ll bring an old black umbrella and use it as a sunshade and sit or stand and look out at the sea every day. And then I’ll leave the umbrella, the now sun-faded and salt-stained was-black umbrella, I’ll leave it lying on the rocks and join you in the water.