Striped rock

Here in new town there’s beach and it’s shelly and rocky. Every morning this gigantic vehicle drives back and forth along the beach sifting the sand and removing whatever floated up during high tide. It also sifts up the trash people leave or lose in the sand during the day. Tonight when I went to the beach to watch and photograph the moon I ended up standing on one of those shell/rock/trash piles. Since I had arrived on the early side I snapped a few pre-twilight images and then glances down at the pile. Immediately my eyes landed on a couple of balls, a matchbox car, a green rope bracelet, some kind of spray bottle top, a wine bottle opener, and a gorgeous striped rock. I bent down, plucked them all up and loaded them into my pockets. I planned on leaving the toys on a bench by the parking lot on my way out.

Eventually two young girls came next to me to photograph the twilight sky with their camera phone and I told them there were these treasures under our feet and I asked them if they’d like the balls. They happily took the balls and ran back to their family. 20 minutes later, as I was heading out passed the girls just in time to see the older one toss the ball and turn to her sister and not entirely nicely say “Fetch! You’re the dog. Get the ball.”

I hustled out thinking their parents might be staring daggers into my back.