Her hair ripples in the breeze that comes off the sea. Each strand seems to move in slow motion, taking its time to sweep across her alabaster face. Caressing her rounded chin and dainty nose, the hair traces rivers over her cheeks and eyelids. She looks like a spirit of the ocean, body rigid and gaze unblinking as she stands nude in the fading sunlight of a summer afternoon.
When she turns her head, her eyes meet mine. They are the brilliant blue of the sea. Brushing her hair out of her face so as not to obscure the view, she smiles at me, a sad smile. I fancy that she hears rather than sees my footsteps in the sand, and I stop walking, standing shyly several feet from her instead. I feel like a grade school kid with a crush, standing in my faded jeans and open shirt, twisting my hands together nervously as I stare at my bare feet.
She spreads her arms and holds them out against the wind, which is gaining power as the daytime light leaves the sky. It seems as if we have skipped dusk and moved straight into darkness, and it gives me an eerie feeling. The beach isn�t normal tonight, and it is because she is here. I don�t have to know. I can just tell.
The scars that riddle her back are angry in their crisscrossed pattern. I wonder how she got them, but I don�t ask. Words don�t seem appropriate at a moment like this. She looks like a bird about to take off, and I don�t want to interrupt her flight.
Her arms come down slowly, and she looks at me again. Her eyes have changed. They are turquoise now. I wonder what it means. I wonder why I am here, on this beach, with the darkness growing more oppressive over my head. There are storm clouds, and rain is beginning to fall.
There is a long silence, and nature seems to still around us as I gaze into her eyes. Why did I walk over and disturb her? I do not know. It was an impulse, something uncontrollable, like someone calling me, like when my mother calls me home for dinner at eight o�clock every night. It is past eight o�clock now. I have heard a more important call.
A wave dashes against the rocks, the spray stings my eyes, and my spirit of the ocean is gone. I know I will never see her again. Turning, I slowly walk back up the beach, scrambling so I don�t slide back down the dunes as the sand shifts beneath my feet. I remember her turquoise eyes as the rain falls on the pavement outside the house, and I sit on the steps in that rain, letting the sand wash away from my skin before I go inside.
