The beach cooled as the sun lowered in the sky and the sunbathers took their towels and lotions back to their cars that had been baking in the parking lot. They were replaced by workers getting off their shifts looking forward to drinking a beer on the beach as the sun went down. Further up the strand the beach had emptied out completely and the wind was picking up. The waves crashed and crashed and crashed.

There was a stirring in the middle of the empty part of the beach and a depression began to be created as sand swirled like a drain. Gradually a blue corpse was revealed: a large, overweight man with bug-eyes open and dusted with sand. Beside him emerged a female figure, almost skeletal, made entirely out of hardened sand. They both sat up and looked out at the sky. “Didn’t miss the sunset yet,” said the sand-girl. “No,” said the fat corpse. “It’s gonna be a good one, I can tell.” He put his heavy, blue and black arm on her bony shoulder. She leaned over and kissed his rotted cheek with her sand-lips, leaving a black mark.

When the sun went down the sky exploded with burning reds and purples which in turn set the rough ocean water ablaze with color. Sounds of radios and squealing children could be heard from up the beach as the workers drank their beers took in the sky’s beauty. The blue corpse pulled the sand girl close. Flies buzzed around, landing on his putrid flesh. A smile widened across the sand-girl’s face. “Are we going in?” she asked. “Of course,” the corpse said. They both got up and lumbered clumsily over to the break. “You gotta just go in at once. No thinking about it.” The sand girl stepped into the water, the tide splashing around her feet which instantly disintegrated, lowering her quickly to her knees which began disintegrating too. “No, just go in at once, like this,” the corpse said and did a belly-flop into the water. The sand girl stepped forward, disintegrating more.

“It’s too cold,” she said. He couldn’t hear her anymore. He floated face-down, his rotting body getting tossed about by the waves, pieces of flesh separating from his bones like overcooked chicken. Then the sand-girl went for it and dove in, the rest of her body dissolving instantly, her sand roiled by the current and dispersed up and down the beach to eventually mix in with all the other sand.

Copyright © 2008. All Rights Reserved.