Sand pressed between her toes. The smell of salt hung in the air tantalisingly. Waves rushed in and out, drawing her closer, closer. Moonlight glistened against the black waves. Her hair flew out behind her as the wind picked up, swirling the thin material of her nightgown around her legs. She walked nearer, nearer to the ocean.
The water crept against her toes. Sand ran away with it, tickling her feet with its sweet goodbye kisses. Waves crashed around her, rolling in and out against her toes, her ankles, the backs of her legs, her knees. Droplets of water sprayed against her face, her dress. The water clung to her.
Slowly, she turned her face up to the moon. Her eyes closed. Her mouth tugged up into a smile. Slowly, she held out her arms as if to embrace the ocean, as if to embrace the sparkling night sky and the crashing of the waves and the serene calmness of the gazing, silver moon. And she spun. At first, slowly. But then faster, faster. Her nightgown, drenched and see-through in the darkness, whipped against her. She spun faster, faster and her smile grew. She lifted her chin more. Her soaking hair stuck to her face, her neck, her dress. Her sodden nightgown clung to her skin.
But she danced there, in the moonlight, amidst the waves and the ocean and the sparkling night sky where thousands of stars laughed with her, their voices drowned out by the roaring of the waves that rolled over her.
For the waves were hungry that night as she was empty. And the ocean was the only thing that wanted her anymore. So she spread her arms and she welcomed it into her being, into her hair and her eyes and her mouth and her lungs. And she fell asleep that night. She fell asleep with the moon watching and the stars laughing and a sweet smile on her wet, broken face.
