Beach, Rinse, Repeat

          Cold saltwater splashed up her legs sending a deep chill into her bones. Staring at the blue water she tried to puzzle out how she got here. She didn’t remember anything from before this moment. It’s as if she appeared from nowhere, but it felt familiar. Watching the water pause then race back to the sea as quickly as it washed in, she pondered the place. 

          Another wave rushed in enthusiastically. Hot sun beat down on her pale freckled skin that prickled pleasantly against the contrasting cold water. Seaweed wrapped around her ankles like eels trying to pull her out to sea or perhaps trying to prevent themselves from being pulled back to sea. Her feet sank into the water-logged sand and little mole crab’s butts poked up. The weight of life washed away with the tide and the ocean sounds lulled her into a peaceful tranquility that only a beach could accomplish.

         A patchwork of white puffy clouds within a pale blue sky met the perfectly straight line of the horizon. Dark water gradually faded into the deep blue sea as it traveled thousands of miles to the sandy shore beneath her feet. It was curious that the horizon appeared straight despite the fact the world was round. The optical illusion made it understandable that humans used to think the world was flat and ended at the edge of the sea. The justification of that point of view was obvious when standing here looking at the horizon. Without the technology to discover the world was round it made perfect sense to assume it was flat when your own eyes told you so. If we can’t trust our own eyes, what can we trust in life? 

         Books. Books gave us proof that the world was round. She’d never seen earth from space for herself, but scientists who wrote the books used sophisticated equipment to discover these kinds of things. Equipment that was much smarter than her eyes. So, she wouldn’t debate the merit of scientific texts. 

Making her way to a chair that was wedged into the hot sand, she sat down. Books had always been her escape from reality. She could always trust a good book to tell her truth or whisk her away on wonderful adventures beyond this world. 

         Large puffs of sand swirled around her in the turbulent wind taking with it whatever she was just thinking about. Oh well. Picking up a book that lay next to her chair, she read the title: Amnesia Beach. Sounds intriguing, yet oddly familiar. Flipping to the first page, she started reading;

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