I really, really need your reviews on this one. I was supposed to write a descriptive essay on the beach. I did my best, BUT I can't tell you how much I appreciate reviews. Many thanks, Palip.
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It was like standing at world's edge, or rather the start of a scenario which resists the hands of time itself. My life seemed so insignificant as the carnage of the play unfolded before my eyes. A place which bestowed the feeling of life and peace upon humans, somewhere where people laughed as they buried each other in the sand or splashed into the water, had morphed into a horror movie.
The wind howled and raged with such intensity, ready to engulf anything which stood in its path of annihilation, spreading havoc wherever it went. Its feral freedom I found petrifying. I was frozen to the spot.
Miles and miles of endless sea worked itself up in a frenzy, frothing in anticipation. Waves rolled and collapsed into each other, rising out of the water as they crawled further and further up the shore in a foreboding manner.
I shut my eyes as I felt the golden dust beneath my feet rise. Minuscule particles of sand swirled, danced and laughed at the wind's desperate attempt for freedom. There were so many of them, interlocking with each other, that they formed a thick brown shield. It enveloped me in its embrace, deliberately preventing me from witnessing the rest of the play.
My knees buckled. The wind was too strong, too heinous. It thumped me square in my chest, and I fell back onto the soft sand.
I could not understand this. It had been folly to come out here, sheer madness to go to the beach on a windy winter day. Yet, all I had heard about the beach was what a mind-blowing place it was. How it washed all your troubles away, how life's hardships seemed so paltry as one walked along the shore; as one felt the wet, cushioning sand beneath one's feet and the waves landed ever so gently, decorating the shore with little shells. Or how on hot summer days, the children would rush down to the sea, screaming in delight, wading into the water as they felt the sea's cold, benign touch. I also heard of how they would built sand castles all along the beach, and at the end of each day, the beach would look like one huge, complex battlefield, with castles lined up, one after the other along the shore.
I must have remained in the same position for ages, for I had neither the will nor the courage to try and sneak away from the elements to safety.
Many long hours of praying in terror before the play came to an abrupt end. The wind had caused enough destruction, the malignant dancing particles dropped back to the golden dust and the persistent waves receded back into the sea from whence they came.
I dared make an attempt to stand up, breathing in a long sigh of relief as I opened my eyes, surveying my surroundings. The sea tickled the shore ever so gently, the sand was cool and soothing. The beach was a place of heaven. And as I made my way back to the busy city life, shaken but unhurt, I pondered this one question. How could a place of such ferocity and terror turn into such a naïve and innocent paradise?
