WAIKIKI

On the famous beach in Honolulu a small Japanese girl cried and cried and cried. She stood stiff-legged, poking her feet into the sand. Her parents kneeled, whispered, cajoled. Then they tried walking away. They had a baby in their arms. They strolled surprisingly far down the beach, but never took their eyes off her. She raised the volume on her crying, staring straight out to sea. Her pink bathing suit, its ruffled rump. Our eyes followed the silver planes rising off the runway. I loved every plane I was not on. I loved the wailing girl who saw no one else on that beach but herself, whose throat worked hard to find the biggest, saddest sound. After her parents gave up and dragged her still screaming down the beach, we went and sat by the poked-in place her feet had made and funneled up the billion particles into a mound.