The End

Everyone pities a comeback artist, anyway. A drabble.

The waves are devouring someone's CD collection. Charlie sits down to watch, digging painted toes into wet sand. The Beatles, Patsy Cline, Oasis...

And there, cracked and jutting out of the sand, Maniac at the Wheel. DriveShaft's only LP. A thought strikes him, sharp through the haze of withdrawal: there isn't going to be a comeback, not even if he does get rescued. DriveShaft was over the day they slipped off the charts.

A wave tugs at the disc, and it slides away in a glint of foam and silver. He lets it go.

In the end, everyone's washed up.