Shoreline

Here I am. Sitting on the sands of a damp beach. Its sand cloys at my legs and my palms as I stare out and into the steel-grey ocean lapping against the shore. The hiss of the water drawing back again, again, again seems to pull me with it, though it only gets further from me as the tide goes out. I let my eyes fall shut as a fine mist of rain begins to fall, freshwater tears against my face nothing but a shoddy substitute for the sorrow that refuses to fall from my lashes. Overcome with exhaustion, I fall to my side and curl my body hopelessly against the world.

With the rough sand this close to my face, I can almost imagine that I'm observing a vast landscape, stretching out before me. Hills and vales in the sand, hiding their secrets from all but the closest observers. As if I could find them. If only. Perhaps they would tell me which way to go. Instead, I press my face harder into the frigid sand, as though attempting to draw some small warmth or comfort from it. Instead, all I do is create another valley in its tempestuous landscape. Even its motionless geography seems more vivacious and mutable than me.

Eventually, I begin to notice the sand fleas. They are small and energetic creatures, jumping from dune to dune across their tiny landscapes. One misjudges the ground and lands on the side of an unstable ridge, disturbing the precarious balance. It doesn't even have time to jump again before the sand sloughs of, nearly burying it. But, after a brief pause, it jumps off again to face new perils in the sand. It seems to me that they're a lot like us in this way. Directionless, for the most part. Leaping with abandon into the unknown. And, when everything falls down around them, forced to keep going, pushing off the ground once more into the great unknown. But no matter how high they get, they cannot soar forever. And so we all fall, again and again. Until we are buried. Until we give up jumping. Or, perhaps, until we learn to seek a higher ground.