Eagle Antidepressant

I walked the dune trail above the South Jetty. My spirit was the color of the rocks, my mind listless and gray. I saw a 40-ounce bottle of Pabst resting atop a flat rock. Why drink Pabst? Why leave the bottle half full?

Low tide had brought the clammers to the beach and they clammed away with gusto. I checked a fort message container—nothing new.

Fat drops of rain began to fall. I heard a weird buzzing sound and saw a drone flying nearby. I kept moving away from the drone. I ate a hard boiled egg and half a pear.

There she was, perched atop a piling of an ancient trestle, my old friend here, the bald eagle. She turned her and looked at me. I looked back. We’d interacted dozens of times over the years, we were friends, but I had never thought to name her. Now I did. I named her Rachel, after Rachel Carson, whose writing in Silent Spring was primarily responsible for my seeing this bald eagle.

I snapped a couple of photographs. Rachel alighted and veered toward the ocean. I imagined her going into battle against the drone. That made me smile.

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