THE TIDES
The ocean is far more than water. She swells with the moon, and disappears on the darkest nights. You get to know her moods as you would an old friend, and you respect her movements, her ever-changing ways. Her tides move in and out, bringing coconuts, leaf fragments, dead crabs and old fishing floats onto her shore. There is always an early-morning anticipation of what she has coughed up in the night, and what she has stolen. Those in the know make it down before the rest of the world wakes, leaving only their footprints in the sand.
A lone figure walks on the beach in the dim light of dawn. The high tide line snakes along, marked by small shells and twigs. Farther down, a log or a branch lies twisted and still, halfway up the beach. There is the faint smell of seaweed, pungent and salty. The figure moves leisurely but soon quickens their pace. The log is beginning to look less like a log and more like a body, appendages spreading out like seaweed. The figure stops, bends down as one would inspecting something unusual, something shocking.
If anyone knows death, it’s the sea.