I try to stand up but it seems that I can’t, not yet, so I kneel in the shallows, letting little harmless waves surge past me, back and forth. I straighten my swimwear, watch the water drawing the blood off my skin and whirling it away, as if it has need of it, as if it has some purpose in mind for it. I look about me, at the mimosa trees showering the ground with their yellow dust, at a cirrus cloud illuminated at its frayed edges, at the borders of the empty towels on the sand, the way their rectangular redness pulses against the ochre earth.
