Skip to main content

The Beach Detached

The Beach Detached


Every beach has a silver lining. I am not talking about blue ceiling above. That is not the idiom. I gazed far across the beach where the water shimmered, searching...

It was my first time seeing the southern shore. I was walking towards the water when I heard a sudden eeriness. It was not tangible, but something I felt I could hold on to - a thin invisible membrane. I raised my hand to grab it in a fist, ruminating. I knew what it was. I looked up. The water!

The wave sensed the pull, and came crashing at my feet. Startled, I looked down at it. In milliseconds my impulses acted on, they prepared me. The wave touched the eeriness on my skin, cowered, and fell back. In its defense, it left behind foam on my toes.

There is some science between sand, and foam, they say. Foam pulled sand particles up on my toes. Grainy tension lay there in married harmony. "Play all you want! I'm waiting for someone to arrive." I exclaimed, looking at it. Foam and sand felt disturbed, and glared at me. I decided to ignore it, and sat down on my knees.

If there is anything I like, it is a quiet and empty beach. Both of us embracing, and breathing each other. The soft wind on my face, blowing my hair - ah, the peace it brings me! I felt a gentle touch on the shoulder. A hand as warm as him, and tan. I did not turn around, for I knew who it was. I stayed there, revering the moment...

"WOOF WOOF!" I opened my eyes wide. A deafening sound. Pupils dilated. Barking repeated, and picked speed every second. I started trembling, and went numb. It was going to kill me if it didn't stop.

I am scared of dogs. They may be the best of companions to others, but they are demented souls to my fear. If anyone had looked at me panicking at that moment, they would have laughed. Except I was not; my legs were jelly. So I turned around to see where it was. The big beast was walking away, barking nevertheless. The unwelcome sound was drowning in the distant wind as I heaved a sigh, putting back my pounding heart in my chest. I gathered my nerves... damn! Okay... With a sunken heart, I was aware of my surroundings. The dog's bark had brought me back to my senses. The reality. There was no comforting hand on my shoulder, no one came!

I have no super power, neither am I a character from some fantasy. The water did not hear or see anything. But, if I am a human, why are my thoughts always of me living the dream in real, when in reality I am the dream I do not want to live?

I winced, and kicked my foot back in impulse over a sharp pain of a shard...? No, it was not a shard. I looked down, and realized that there were no imaginary sand and foam forces for friends I possessed. Or did I? It is actually my mind that often makes me hear things I do not understand the language of. I noticed that they were not glaring or mocking me. Sand lay under my feet, crunching! Where it just hurt my feet, it left the sensitive skin all red. I am not used to the beaches and sands, because I live on the plains. I came here for... a change, maybe? Or to shed my...

I set off. It didn't work! In vain went another of my countless attempts. I could not get rid of the demons weighing me down. I could not rub off rigorously the conspicuous reddish brown scales on my arms with the precipitated beach stone. I looked back at the beach for the last time. It lay there resting under the sun, undisturbed, and not bothered with me. I stood there for a minute, frowned; hesitated; then turned to leave.

My hair a veil, a barrier that stops me from physically connecting with shapeless brown smoke lined ghosts dragging behind me, like a bulldozer. The ghosts swam out of the beach with me, without nudging the water in the slightest. But they left numerous deep heavy tracks, like the dragging seals on the sand. I did not dare look back for I knew, the light that always refused to help! Sun casted its golden glow on the leveled ground, bouncing back by design, leaving dark shadows on the newly dug carved tracks.


-

Flash Fiction on Lifestyle Prism.


Related Reads:

Carl

A winter song