“I wonder it’ll be like,” she remarked, “hundreds of years from now, when they write the history of our lives.” The sun was dropping fast now, rays flooding the sand in a wash of amber and crimson while the tinny jazz music from speakers at the bar 50 metres back began to swell over. The subtle hiss and pop of lime meeting Corona barely registered but it was enough and as one they stood, taking their first steps down to the waves beyond lively Venice Beach. With every step the calming patter of wake ahead brushed out the nonsensical sounds behind and she continued.
“Every generation up until now had something to define them. They might not have known it at the time but they did, none the less. Our parents were brought up in the 80s, they dressed badly, listened to cheesy music and learnt not to fear the bomb cause Reagan was in control. They were always going to be fine. Our grandparents grew up in the shadow of that bomb but they were brought up after one war in Europe and had kids while people a few years younger died in Vietnam. Their parents before them were desperately poor because of bankers on Wall Street, it’s funny how things change there! And I’m not sure what happened to the parents of those guys but it probably meant something.”
They reached the water’s edge, removing cheap flip flops to let their toes wriggle in the sand, now leeched and pale as the sun finally sank beneath the horizon, leaving only a soft red scar to light the sea. The noise and neon lingered on ignored, they turned away from the pier to their right and started down the beach. “We talk lots about the future and how great it is that everyone gets opportunities to succeed, but no one ever takes the time to stop and look back at what’s going on now. It seems we live, disembodied and wide eyed for the future and learn respectfully from the past, but the present is mere existence.”
A stray breaker snatched at her ankle and she gasped. As warm as Californian air is, the sea is still fresh enough to pull you to your senses. “Perhaps they’ll think of us as the internet generation, or the millenials or maybe we’ll be known for some war just round the corner. Maybe there will be a revolution after all and we’ll finally reach some big epiphany or maybe we’ll just go on doing our every day stuff and ignore what’s going on. But right now our own condition seems to be very much a dream and this soporific state of affairs is nothing to be particularly impressed by.”
She took a long swig of the beer and with a nonchalant flick of hair continued. “When they come to write it, they’ll probably do what we do now though. They won’t write our history to suit us but use it as a commentary on their own time. If people are consistent at one thing, it’s to lament the loss of past and encourage further deviations from that past in our future. All our lives we are told to forecast, to predict, to speculate and when it’s over we analyse, criticise, reflect and use that to prepare us for the future. Yet we do all that and the one thing we can never do is enjoy the ‘it’ that we live in now.
It’s easy to called self indulgent for our wanton attempts to enjoy life as it is now; you don’t need to be popping pills or taking endless photos, any expression of contentment sees us called lazy or ungrateful and not striving forward towards that futures everyone always goes on about. Beers nearly empty they dropped them in a cheap plastic bag on a lifeguard station and headed back up towards the welcome lights. “I’m sick of dreaming about what’s to come and waiting to look back with nostalgia. It seems the only thing we don’t consider real is the reality we live in now and tonight I want to live,” she said. The salt from the sea scratched against her legs and they took a meandering pebbled path back up to another bar.
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