I felt a stinging on my skin. One lick around my lips and an explosion of ocean salt entered my mouth. I walked further from the cliff, further from the ocean sprays and its aggressive yet beautiful pounding. Thunders of waves echoed in the distance. My red toe nails sunk into the golden sand. I walked, and walked and walked. I needed to rest and enjoy the beach in stillness. The sun had reached its peak in the sky, ferociously beaming overhead. My grandmother's blue scarf covered my head, whilst strands of my brown hair poked through, waving in the wind. My smooth shoulders glistened in the heat. The sun beamed down onto my body, reddening my exposed skin. I worried about sun spots, and the death of my youth. My watch marked twelve o’clock; it was still early in the day. Enough time to relax before leaving the beach. I walked further from the cliffs, and upon reaching the calmer section of the beach, where the waves trickled in softly, found my stripped towel and plopped onto the ground. The sand softened the impact. Seashell fragments and rocks covered the beach, stretching for miles. People, towels, and umbrellas speckled the topography. Squinting into the distance all objects on the beach blurred into colors of pink and orange. The cliffs sat in the distance, a vision of power. My ears dulled the voices of my friends around me, heightening the pounding of the waves, a clash between earth and water. I laid down, turned onto my stomach, and closed my eyes.  

Turquoise disintegrated into dark blue, slipping through my fingers. Tensing up, I searched throughout my body for a sliver of air, mustering the tiniest droplets from my lungs. I fought against my thoughts, ignoring the calling of every survival instinct, begging me to abandon my expedition into the darkness. Entering a bubble of cold I shivered involuntarily, but my body continued to propel forwards with a fierce intensity. Floating, I turned onto my back, calming my flailing limbs. The air in my body was gone. 

At that moment I stabilized. Water gushed into my eyes, fighting to fill any open cavity. Faced up I looked towards the surface of the water. Light peered in, fighting to enter the boundary into the darkness. It banged on the door, pleading to enter, poking, and peering and begging for one ounce of space. Mini beams of light entered, creating a translucent cloud, a universe unexplored, a star too far away. My chest tightened, tiny bubbles of air drifted to the top, my body was battling me. In a sporadic movement, I pushed with my arms through the water. 

A rope appeared, and I clung to it, climbing up to the heavenly air. The waves were violent, erratically whipping me around. Rain pattered everywhere, creating a block of mist. I had nowhere to look, everything was gray. My eyes deceived me, portraying a vision of darkness so surreal I floated within the universe, quiet and comforted. Suddenly, a deep blaring sound roared from some distant place, its echo reverberating off the waves. The darkness faded, and through my frenzy I realized that a boat was nearby. I frantically began to swim, my mind focused on only the present. Salt filled my mouth, exiting through my nostrils. The swells of waves grew larger and larger, obscuring my view of the boat. 

Adrenaline surged through my veins. Diving between the walls of rising seawater I could hear the horn blaring. I wanted to scream, but the noise felt sluggish and warped, like I was still underwater. No longer did I have strength to swim, and so I turned on my back and floated. The swells calmed, the rain ended, and suddenly the sun glared down onto me.  

I opened my eyes; 

Children's voices whispered near me, waves crashed in the background. Reconnecting with reality, I glanced down at my hands, noticing that they appeared more wrinkled than I had ever noticed. Freckles and sun spots adorned my skin, the beauty of age. The sun was far past noon, about three o’clock. White flyaway hairs irritated my eye, but my hands were too sandy to push them back. I rolled to the left and onto my back. 

Shuffling around the towel, I found my reading glasses and put them on.                                                                            The children's voices grew nearby. “Audrey, James! Come here!” my daughter scolded from behind me. I took off my grandmother's head scarf and handed it to my daughter. 

“Protect your beautiful skin my love.” I said.

“Thank you mother.” she smiled, and wrapped it around her shining brunette hair. Her skin; a glistening brown, darked by the sun, void of any imperfections. 

There is something about closing your eyes on the sand and just floating away into another universe. My skin was hot and red, pleading for a break from the sun. The tide was rising; the water lured more inland. I walked closer to the lull of the waves, a subtle turquoise. The ocean was shallow, reaching a dark blue hue several yards into the distance. My toes sank into the wet sand and the waves splashed over the large indent my feet had left in the sand. I walked slowly into the water. The waves hit my thighs and then reached my waist. A cold shudder enveloped my body and slowly faded. My sunburnt skin began to calm. I looked down at my hands, scathed by time, and let the water pass through my fingers.  I bent down, turned onto my back, and floated. Floated in the blazing sun.