The ocean and the mountains might be hereditary enemies, but they were united in their determination to destroy their common nemesis—California State Route 1. The Pacific Coast Highway was famous, or infamous, depending on who you were or how you looked at it. It snaked between LA and San Francisco through dry hills to the south, then sliced across spectacular cliffs that cartwheeled into the ocean.

The road was never more than two lanes with the occasional passing lane. Storms blasted wind and rain onto the land. The land gathered the rain in dry creek beds that swelled to destructive rivers and roared down to the sea, undermining the highway’s bridges and leaving the way open for the waves to tear at concrete and asphalt.

Last spring, one storm after another had shut the highway to traffic. The California Department of Transportation had erected gates, closed them and spent months trying to get the road repaired. So far, no luck.

Phone in hand, Adam took photos of a new, deep gash in the pavement and sent them to the Caltrans head of repairs. When he got a single-word response, he winced.

He parked on the left lane of the highway above Nora Pocket Beach. Not another human soul was in sight. From the head of the path, he hiked down the cliff, skidding as sand shifted out from underfoot, and when he set foot on the white sand, he smelled sea, salt and loneliness. The sun shone, heating his shoulders and back, while the cold wind whistled off the water and slapped at his face, demanding attention.

Here after the last storm, he’d found the metal that he’d formed into last night’s brutal art. But although high tide had covered the beach and ripped at the base of the cliff, today he saw nothing imbedded in the sand. He climbed to the top of the promontory that separated this beach from the next. That sand, too, was clear. The ocean giveth, the ocean taketh away. No man could predict the Pacific. No man should try.

Turning west, he surveyed the horizon, the restless water, the fast-moving clouds, the swooping seagulls whose flight mocked the earth. Weary, he walked out to the farthest point on the rocks, found a sunny spot and sat, arms propped up on his crooked knees, watching the waves break and retreat, break and retreat. The endlessness of the Pacific, the promise that it would remain restless and in motion and cleansing, hypnotized him. The ocean had given life before he arrived on this earth, and it would provide life when he was gone. When he was gone...

When he was gone, he wouldn’t have to remember the people whose trust he had betrayed, who had paid with their lives for his stupidity. Mesmerized by the ocean’s promise of forgetfulness, he stood and took a step toward the edge that plunged into the ocean’s maw. He took another, and another—