Mar Adentro

Sand, sand everywhere. I close my eyes and take in the sounds of crashing waves and people happily chatting away.
I grab a broken seashell lying next to me and start scooping the sparkling brown diamonds, finding more broken seashells underneath like some sort of forgotten, buried treasure. A black beetle angrily scuttles away, having been discovered in its cool, moist lair.
"Let's go for a walk," I say.
The wind whips at our dehydrated skins deliciously, and the dancing sailboats wobble from left to right, right to left in its grasp.
"It's great that the seashells don't hurt our bare feet, isn't it?" says my friend.
Our white toes clash painfully against the earth's tanned floor. However, if we just let a few sand grains swim onto our skin, it seems as if we've been granted a few specks of gold. That, or ghastly freckles.
"What's that?" we both ask, suddenly.
An enormous, bloated white jellyfish lies in the sand, seaweed clinging to its bulging corpse. It is clearly dead, and may have been so for a few hours.
It seems so fragile, yet so strong at the same time. Its clear, rubbery body glistens in the sun and its head is about the size of 1.5 large dinner plates.
I gently touch it with a big seashell, wanting to know its outer body's resistance to harder objects. It's extremely firm and flexible at the same time.
"Fascinating creature, and one that hasn't evolved much throughout mankind's time", I think to myself.
We walk on, and spot various families and old men trying to find little coquinas (edible oysters) in the shallow sand. Swish, swish, they go...twirling and twirling their feet in the brown, heavy earth.
At this point the wind starts getting harsher.
"Let's head back", I advise.
After struggling with sandy flip-flops, shorts and t-shirts, I turn back towards the water and breathe in.
I'm smiling.
H.