I love my beach, my lovely, lovely beach. I’m walking up it now, shore to my right, water to my left. A breeze ruffles my white skirt around my knobby knees. My mind is as blank as it has been in days but it’s not enough to put me in the blissful, mindless state I enjoy when wandering my beach. I walk with no real direction, not knowing or caring where I end up or how long I walk.
My beach is silent, as it always is. The breeze does not whisper through the grass as it sways, the ocean is quiet and still. The tides have not lapped at the earth in decades, leaving no sound to be heard out on the glassy, mirror-like surface of seemingly endless water. Even the brilliantly colored aquatic life cannot create a single ripple. If I were to approach the water, it would not splash over my feet. It does not splash at all. Ever.
The ocean is also free of vessels. No one has sailed this water in ages for fear of what may lurk below its unnerving, immeasurable depths. At first, captains had ignored the colossal, monstrous, skeletons that began appearing on the sand in the dead of night, every one of them picked clean. No tide could have washed them ashore, and there is no evidence of them being placed here from somewhere else. Anyone who has tried to find their source is never seen again. I am now passing the skeleton of a serpentine creature with numerous fangs as long as my forearm. I see another one in the distance. Perhaps I could reach it by sundown.
The sand of my beach is soft between my bare toes. It contains no shells or seaweed and is always the same smooth texture, even when wet. The sand swirls across the beach in various shades of earthy browns. Picked up by gusts of wind, it sparkles as it floats around my ankles. I look behind me and watch as it begins dancing up and down the lengthy ribcage of the beast I passed only moments before. The breeze whips my long, stringy hair around my shoulders.
No houses line the grassy shore. But, the structures I have found are old, ramshackle buildings that are so small I can only describe them as sheds. Most are empty, but a few contain dusty, sand covered items. One is full of nothing but piles of broken clocks that will sometimes ring, but only in the very early hours of the morning. Another shack contains worn, leather-bound books. Each of them is several inches thick, but every page is blank. My favorite of these buildings is the large one that is a full day’s walk from where I always start my aimless journeys. The edges of the single room are stacked from floor to ceiling with old oil paintings. I like oil paintings. Their thick, sweeping strokes but masterful attention to detail makes the world seem sharper, clearer. I now pass the shed that I know to contain an assortment of old newspapers from hundreds of different dates and from places all over the globe. Soon, it is behind me. I don’t look back.
I love my beach. My silent, empty, beautiful beach.