The Beach

Judy lifted her weary head up out of the water and looked around. She was laying face down on a beach with the water ebbing back and forth around her. It finally got to her face which was what had woken her up. Another wave came in and this time splashed water in her eyes which started to burn because of all the salt in the water. She went to rub her eyes with her hands but they were covered with sand. Having nothing to rub her eyes with she just closed them and waited for a minute for the burning to subside before she dared open them again. She mentally took stock of her body and felt a million bruises all up and down plus a few cuts and from the pain in her arm possibly a broken arm. She was in rough shape and she knew it. She hurt from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. The pain was a constant aching that seemed almost to pulse with the waves coming and going back out, especially in her arm. She looked at the arm and didn't see any bones sticking out or any blood on the arm but from the amount of pain she was experienceing it had to be broken.1

Heaving a huge weary sigh she pulled herself up out of the water with her good arm, slowly standing upright but weaving a little after she finally got up. She was covered in sand from laying on the beach. There was sand everywhere on her body including filling her ears. She tried to dig it out of her ears but since she had a bad habit of chewing on her fingernails they were basically useless and she couldn’t get it out. She also had a mouth full of the stuff as well and she kept spitting trying to get it all out. She hated the feeling of biting down and having sand between her teeth. 2

Judy briefly thought about going back into the water to try to get all the sand off of her but then remembered that she had just spent the last eternity in the water. There was no way she was going anywhere near that water again unless someone physically dragged her into it, but they would have a very hard time doing that because she would fight tooth and nail. The thought of getting the sand off vanished abruptly as her enormous thirst kicked into high gear again. She was so dry inside that it would take a whole mountain reservoir of the coldest, glacier fed water to ever fill her up again. She knew that she had to find some good water soon or she would be too weak to walk around looking for it. Already she had a hard time just standing there thinking about getting a drink. She wanted to go look for some water but at the same time she also wanted to sink back to the ground and lay on the sand and take a long nap.3

Using all of her will power she picked up one foot and then put it back down and then the other foot. She started walking up the beach towards the line of trees hoping to find water quickly. After she had walked for a ways the walking started getting easier and she kept going. As she walked she looked around her. The long empty impossibly white beach extended away to both sides of her for as far as she could see. She saw no signs of human habitation. There were no boats on the water, there were no beach houses with steps leading down to the beach, there were no telephone poles anywhere within sight, there weren’t even any planes flying in the air leaving contrails. There was nothing. It felt like she was the only one left on the planet. 4

It felt like she had been walking forever when she finally reached the first tree. She walked past it into some fairly thick brush. It was hard getting through the grass and brush because she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Her feet were still tender from being in the water for so long and everything that she stepped on hurt a lot. It was very painful trying to get through but she was so thirsty that she had to do something. 5

After about ten minutes of struggling through the high grass and bushes she stepped through on last bush and suddenly she stepped out into a park like area. The grass here was cut uniformly like a lawn mower had come through and cut it all. It was very green and as she stepped onto it the coolness along with the soft spring thickness of it seemed to be the best thing that she had ever felt in her life. She marveled that this was hidden away here in the forest of palm trees and brush like this. Where had it come from and who took care of it. All the questions running through her mind vanished suddenly as she looked around and spotted a fountain with water running out of it in the opposite corner of the park. Now that she had seen it she could actually hear the faint gurgle of running water and nothing had ever sounded so good to her. She started walking faster, wanting to get to that water and before she knew it she was running and it felt really good because the grass was soft and didn’t hurt her feet at all. It was amazing. 6

She arrived at the fountain, which had three levels in it surrounded by a pool which spread out around for about twenty feet. She laid down at the edge of the pool and took a little of the water in her hand to try it hoping against hope that it wasn’t salty. As the water went into her mouth it was crystal clear and as it went down her throat it was the sweetest tasting thing ever. It was so good that she didn’t want to stop drinking it. She plunged her whole head right into the pool taking in mouthfuls of the wonderful stuff. After she had drank a lot of it she rolled over on her back and laid on the grass enjoying the softness of it and the wonderful feel of water in her body. In her mind heaven couldn’t be any better then it was right now. The air was cooled by a fresh breeze, there were only a few clouds floating lazily up in the sky , and the thick spongy grass was beneath her. 7

She rolled over to her stomach to cradle her head on her arms and rest but as she was rolling she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked over to where the movement had come from but there was nothing there except for some trees and bushes. 8

“Hello,” she yelled out, “is anybody there?”9

She listened but there was no other sounds. No one spoke up and returned her call. It was quiet. Besides the gurgle of the water coming out of the fountain she could hear no other sounds. It was so peaceful. She decided that she must have been mistaken and hadn’t really seen anything after all. So she laid down to rest again. Her eyes were heavy and she slowly relaxed all over and her body got heavy and she didn’t want to open her eyes, so she just laid there and went to sleep. 10

As she slept her body began to crawl, or more correctly, all of the sand on her body began to crawl. Slowly, very slowly, every grain of sand started moving under it’s own propulsion and they gathered together near her neck forming a slowly growing pile of sand that sat on top of her neck. When the last grain of sand from the bottom of her foot that made the long trek all the way up to her neck and joined the pile sitting on the neck, the pile of sand shifted again and became a ball which moved and rolled down her neck and fell on the ground. Immediately it started rolling towards the fountain, inching along, slowly, inexorably coming closer to the water.11

“AAAAAAGH”12

Judy lunged awake at the sound of the scream. She jumped up and looked around wild eyed trying to find out where the scream had come from. 13

“AAAAAAAGH” 14

She heard it again and turning her head to the left she saw the biggest man that she had ever seen in her life lunge out of the forest and head directly for her yelling as loudly as he could. She shrank back from the ferocious wild look in his eyes. She started back pedaling as he got closer to her. She knew from how fast he was running that she would never be able to outrun him. She was terrified because he seemed to grow with every step he took and when he got closer he seemed to tower over her. She screamed as he got within a couple of feet but he didn’t even slow down, he just went around her and bent down scooping up a little ball in his hand that she hadn’t seen before and kept running right at the trees. He held the ball in front of him in a cupped hand and she could see the ball disintegrate in his hand and become a pile of sand which started leaking out of his hand. He had gotten ten to twelve steps past the fountain when this happened and he swung his arm back like a major league pitcher and pitched that sand for all that he was worth. The sand flew twenty or thirty feet but it was so light that it didn’t go much further. 15

As soon as the sand was gone he turned around and came back to her. His face was stormy and as he shoved his finger in her face he said, “Why did you bring them here to this place?”16

She couldn’t understand what he was saying. She understood the words and at some level was glad that he spoke English but she couldn’t understand why he would say that. It was obvious that she had come alone and there was nobody else here. She looked around thinking maybe there was somebody behind her. 17

“What are you talking about?’ she said. “There is nobody here but us.”18

He looked frustrated and yelled at her again. “You idiot, you brought them right here and now we are going to lose this place. How could you do that to us?” He was now red in the face and looked like he was going to strike her. She took a step back.19

“I’m sorry if I did something bad, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Please explain it to me.”20

“Did you just come from the beach?” he asked her.21

“Yes, I did. I’ve been stranded out of the ocean for several days after my boat capsized in a big storm. I was just washed up this morning. I came straight here from there and I didn’t see anyone. Who did I bring with me?” 22

He stopped yelling but he still had a very intense look on his face and he still looked like he wanted to punch her. He said to her, “If you’ve been gone for several days then you don’t know what happened two days ago do you? She shook her head no and he continued, “It started raining sand two days ago. Literally sand was falling out of the sky. Nobody knows where it came from but there it was. This sand is special because as soon as it touches fresh water it starts to expand and it keeps expanding, absorbing all of the water and then it starts to spread out devouring everything that it touches. By the end of the day everything except the very top of the mountains and some islands were covered in ten or twenty or thirty feet of sand. Everyone is gone except for a few of us here on this island. This was the last holdout from the sand. We were trying to think of a way to keep the sand away from us and now you have doomed us. As soon as that sand reaches the water it will be all over.”23

She looked at him with mounting horror on her face as he told her what had happened. She looked at the water and as she did she happened to see a small pile of sand on a rock about to fall into the water. She pointed at the sand and said, “look out.”24

He turned and lunged just as the sand was falling into the water. He caught the little pile on his hand but his momentum kept him going and he fall and the hand with the sand went into the water. As soon as the sand hit the water it began expanding at an unbelievable rate and within twenty seconds had absorbed all of the water in the fountain and kept growing. Judy started running away but soon came to the tall grass. She ran through it without thought for her feet and as soon as she got through it she looked back and saw a big wall of sand right behind her almost overtaking her. She ran as fast as she could and was about five steps away from the water when she tripped and her feet were engulfed by sand. She struggled to get her feet out and get to the water but was unable to and soon the sand had buried her whole body except the hand that had fallen into the water where it was forced to stop.25