We are at the reservoir of a place where rocks are beaten and beaten with hearty blows of water and other rocks into sand.

The water isn't green or blue, it's brown. Brown and warm, very shallow, like a puddle. We wade out. And out. And out. Our blanket and bags are dots on the beach. The sand beneath my feet is more like mud as my feet sink in, and in, and in, as through the belly of some decaying soft beast. It seems unnatural to be this far out and only waist high in water. Salty, salty water the color of pennies turning green in the change tray of the car.

We come back to find that the wind has buried our belongings in sand. The blanket looks like just a frame of a sandbox, our shoes black moles buried to their necks by sick children's pranks. The wind pushed the sand to bite into our legs and feet so much that we could not stay.

In the reservoir merely tainted with nature, we are small bits of paper or lice, crawling over the back of some larger creature who barely feels us biting over its slick surface. As it runs.

The world is too much with us.

We drove off watching the sand lurch and crumble, the tan people pretending they are still kings on this island. Every day we stay alive is simply day the big world decides we are not worth killing, by fire, lightning, wind or rain.