Sandbar, Land of the Losing

The family lived in the drop-off of a sandbar.

Above them was the lip of sand. Beyond it, more sand stretched farther than they could see. Other people lived down there with them.

All of them were always bracing for the next wave.

There was a house, or enough of one that the family kept living in it.

A Spanish-style chair upholstered in red velour sat in a corner. Part of a dining set, with places for them to sit and eat. A dining cabinet. A reading lamp.

A microwave was lodged in the wall of sand, popping popcorn. A refrigerator held soda and frozen food. Things they’d expect to find at home were there, embedded in the drop-off, and they could still use them.

It was like a refugee camp in some ways.

In other ways, it was just what was left of the world as they had known it.

There were missing things.

There was no shower, no tub, no sink. No pets, and really no animals. No ceiling. There was sky with no birds.

Manmade walls and floors were missing.

Between the furniture there was sand, and above them, open air.

No moon. No stars. No clouds.

Blue.

The microwave kept popping. The mom looked out at the water.

It had come up once already. There had been a rush, a terrible urgency, and then they were all still there. She couldn’t remember how they had survived it. Had there been others swept away? The animals? The walls and ceilings and floors?

The red chair remained. They all still had places at the table.

Now the beach was draining.

The water pulled back, exposing more smooth, dark mounds of sand between rivulets of water.

The bulk of the water kept pulling back.

The mom looked farther out, trying to find where it had stopped.

The dad saw it, too.

“You need to get to higher ground.”

He would stay with their things. The mom took the children toward the rise.

But how do you climb sand?

She dug her hands into the drop-off. Each handful came loose. When she pushed with her feet, the ground slipped beneath them. She tried again, pawing higher, pulling sand down against her chest, under her. Could she make steps? A ramp?

The children were close beside her or they were far away.

She couldn’t turn to look. She urgently kept digging.

She couldn’t dig enough out so that a packed mound would hold their weight.

It just crumbled away.

The harder she tried to move, the more withheld she felt.

Like quicksand.

To struggle was just to succumb sooner.

She could see the top. She couldn’t get them there.

It was all sand. The berm above them could crumble onto them. The ground beneath them could wash away. The next wave could reshape the whole place, sweep it clean of the chair, the table, the food, all of them. There might be nothing left to show they had lived.

Behind her, the water was still somewhere out of sight.

Then it was over.

They were there again. More of the coast had altered, but they couldn’t follow what had moved. They couldn’t remember reaching higher ground.

The red chair stood in the open air. The lamp was there. There were places for them to sit, but no place to sit and eat.

The refrigerator had been moved, but they didn’t know where.

The microwave beeped.

Sand stretched away from them in every direction. Somewhere, the water was coming.

They stayed close to the things they recognized and braced for the next wave.

The next wave was always coming.

It was endless.