A Day at the Beach

More about A Day at the Beach

The beach was packed so tight it looked like somebody had spilled humanity out of a giant sack and forgotten to pick it up.

Bodies everywhere.

Sunburned shoulders. Bellies hanging over swimsuits. Kids screaming like tiny prophets of doom. Old men with cigarettes. Young women laughing at nothing. Dogs chasing shadows. Radios fighting each other with static and cheap songs.

The ocean didn’t care.

It kept rolling in and rolling out like a drunk giant breathing in his sleep.

I sat there with sand in my shoes and watched the whole circus. Ten thousand people trying to enjoy themselves before Monday came back and collected its debts.

A fat guy walked past carrying three ice creams and wearing an expression usually reserved for religious visions.

A kid lost his inflatable shark and cried as if he’d misplaced God.

Two lovers lay together under a striped umbrella, certain that this summer would last forever.

It wouldn’t.

Nothing does.

The sun climbed higher. The crowd grew louder. The smell of salt mixed with sunscreen, sweat, beer, and the strange optimism that always seems to bloom wherever people gather near water.

Everybody had brought something with them.

Their hopes.

Their disappointments.

Their divorces.

Their mortgages.

Their bad knees.

Their dreams of becoming somebody else.

For a few hours they spread towels over all of it and called it a holiday.

The ocean kept washing the edge of the beach clean.

Wave after wave.

Like a patient janitor.

I watched a woman wave at the camera from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Behind her were hundreds of other faces, each carrying a private story nobody would ever fully know.

That seemed about right.

You live.

You sweat.

You laugh.

You get sand in places sand should never be.

Then evening comes.

The shadows grow longer.

People fold their chairs and shake out their towels. The children become sleepy. The radios go silent one by one.

The beach empties.

The ocean stays.

And all those thousands of lives disappear into the parking lot like water draining from a cracked bowl.

Tomorrow another crowd will arrive.

Different faces.

Same sun.

Same waves.

The old blue world continuing its act without applause.