Beach holiday

Photo prompt © Ayr/Gray

I’ve never trusted beaches. Glaring, hot white sand that hurts your eyes and shifts and slips underfoot when you walk and coats your skin with sticky grains, and piles itself up in little hillocks along the edge so you can’t see the firm, green land behind. As though this is all there is.

I’ve never believed the reach of it. All that shimmering blue, stretching out until it meets the empty blue of sky. And is it sloping upwards? Where is that horizon line that keeps me grounded? What kind of place is this that robs the human eye of perspective and scale?

I’ve never liked the movement of it, the push and pull, the creeping of it over feet and knees and thighs and before you know it you’re under and then what? 

I stay away from rock pools too. Where slimy things and scaly things crawl and slither and scuttle.

I’ll sit here while the children run in and out, and squeal with every breaking swell. I’ll play the role, here in my shaded patch with a book, but don’t ask me to relax. Don’t ask me if I had a nice day. 

I’ll tuck them into bed at dusk, bathed and pink-tinged and exhausted and chattering about tomorrow. I’ll kiss their still damp heads and be their night-time storyteller. I’ll choose a book of fairytales and gloss over the scary bits and let them leave their night lamps on and their door ajar when I leave.

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This 250 word story is for The Unicorn Challenge, hosted by Jenne Gray and C. E. Ayr.