Rhythms

I think I left my cell phone in my pocket again. It’s beating rhythmic time on the inside of the washing machine. Ba-da-DUM, ba-da-DUM, DUM, DUM. In Oceanside, Grandma has to hold each of our arms to get across the sand that collapses in tiny implosions with every step. The water numbs our legs until we don’t feel the cold. We go in anyway, because we can’t look at ourselves in the mirror if we go home and say we didn’t go in the water. DUM, DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM. The water is nothing like Neptune today. Today he is a sleepy old man, patting the shore’s arm as if to say “Thanks for holding me up, I’m going to take a nap now.” Maybe he’ll wake up later. My brother and I wade far out onto the beach, teasing little fish and anemones that make our toes tingle. With the angle of the sun splayed out over the water we look like we’re walking on it. Slosh, slosh, slosh, DUM, ba-da-DUM. Maybe I should rescue my cell phone from the washing machine instead of write about it. This beach is full of mysteries, full of lost treasures and screams. We find sea-caves and crawl into them. The sand sifts cold between our toes like the first footprints of the world’s making. The ceilings and walls are hammered-metal smooth, smoother, with slick molds clinging to them. “You can fit.” “No I can’t.” He could fit – he doesn’t have hips like mine - but he doesn’t want to, because he knows what I know and that is that there are screams in the back of those caves waiting to happen. Neither of us is Indiana Jones. Slosh. Slosh. The machine winds down and stops abruptly, with a click of the latch. Grandma is cold and tired. We take her back to the car. I’m afraid to look in the washing machine, because sturdy as it is, no cell phone could take a beating like that and survive. We crawl out of the caves and run along the beach heralding a lost Frisbee, our found artifact. Unexpectedly, the washing machine starts up again.