Trent twisted his head to a painful degree, but all he could discern was a figure made coal-smudge-anonymous by the rising sun behind it.

Righting himself put on more weight than his ankle could bear. Trent stumbled to one side and came to rest upon the bluffs.

Isaac (Trent could clearly see him now) had turned away from his intruder and resumed working. The same swimming trunk Tiki masks watched Trent even when the old man couldn’t be bothered.

Trent found himself oddly entranced by Isaac’s labours. The crouching old man reached blindly for handful after handful of wet sand, culling it from the pile of bulging shopping bags beside him.

Isaac made a sudden sense to Trent: his eccentric attire, his aloofness, his peculiar reputation among the locals. He was an artist. Trent had interviewed enough of them last year for a story on homeless people who elaborately decorated alley walls and sidewalks with chalk drawings, many of which were astonishingly beautiful.

His journalistic instincts stoked, Trent pulled himself up and hobbled over to peek at Isaac’s work-in-progress.

What he found was a hole bored deep into the bluff. Isaac was crouched at the lip of it, pouring handful after handful of clumpy sand into the aperture. Unless this was some Zen practice, Isaac was engaged in a fool’s chore. Trent eyed the pit, then that morning’s stockpile of beach sand. It was like a reverse version of the old fable about bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon.

Reposing next to Isaac was a chunk of dark matter.

Of course this black rock (likely volcanic glass) wasn’t true Dark Matter, but its similarity to the computer-generated models used in his news story was strong enough to frighten Trent.

“I let it out.” The creaking voice reminded Trent of an old gate swinging on rusty hinges. “Don’t tell nobody. I let it out, but it wasn’t nothing but an accident. Righting wrongs takes time, but I’m trying. See? I’m trying.”

Another fistful of sand was ground between Isaac’s palms like baker’s flour. Into the hole it fell. Another reach, more sand. Trent could actually see Isaac’s joints bucking and twitching within his scrawny frame like pistons of bone.

“Is there anything I can do? Why don’t I get you some breakfast? You look like you could use it.”

Isaac shook his longish head. “Too late for that now. All the eggs are broken anyway. You think you’re smart enough to put them back together? I’d like to see you try!” There was a flare of indignation in his voice. He clasped the wiry medallion and brought it to his lips.

“Can you tell me what happened here, Isaac?” He had slipped into reporter-mode; a state of mind that brought Trent both comfort and confidence, if for no other reason than that it afforded him a sense of detachment from his surroundings.