April 8: The Beach

The sand barely stirs across the cement path. The waves roll in their regular rhythm. There is no appearance of anything out of the ordinary. It is a beach — a beach speckled with small families, children digging holes and fathers standing watch. It is quiet and cold.

And then I turn and the wind heaves me aside. It blows up an uneasy wall. The small girl on her bike makes the same turn on the winding path and can not move forward. The invisible wind stretches across the beach, turning the calm violent. Nothing moves.