She remembers visiting the shore as a child, and how vast the ocean seemed. Stretching out toward forever, the edge where sky hugged water blurred in the distance.

She walked out into the surf alone, the cold saltwater swirling around her feet and calves, the roar of the waves crashing in filled her ears.

As she stood there, wind whipping her curls around her face, the sand began to slip out from under her feet. The water rushed out, tugging gently at her, taking the sand beneath her heels with it. And she was sinking so slowly she hardly noticed. In five minutes, her feet were nestled in divots under the water, each incoming wave pressing them deeper under a fresh layer of sand. Seaweed wrapped her ankles.

Now she knows how easy it is to stand in one place, watching the horizon, while the tide presses her deeper and deeper into the earth. 

Leaving Phyllis’s wedding with Roy, Pam feels the cold sand around her feet again.

When he first moved to Stamford, he was always covered in bruises. During his first week, Josh asked if he was hurt, and Jim couldn’t believe that his pain was so obvious. Then he remembered the black and blue marks on his legs and shoulders. He stopped rolling up his shirtsleeves after that.

Jim was so used to living with a roommate that he’d become accustomed to getting ready for sleep and work quietly in the dark. It was part of his routine.

In his new apartment, he kept stumbling over unfamiliar furniture and banging into doorframes. He didn’t mind the pain. He hardly felt it really. It was better than turning on the lights, and really seeing his new life.

When he moved back to Scranton and into his old house, Jim thought he’d stop banging into things.

He didn’t.

Karen said once that if she didn’t know better she’d think someone had beaten him.

He told her that he bruised easily. It didn’t matter. He didn’t mind living in the dark.

But Karen has a habit of turning on the lights.