Shorelines

I was there the day the ocean started to swallow the coastline bit by bit.  The first few grains were hard to notice, what with there being thousands and all.  I first noticed it because I used to run down the beach every night.  I would count my steps, feeling the power of each stride as I knocked up sand in my wake.  472.  That’s how many steps it took to get down to the water from the boardwalk.  472, every time.  The first night it was anything less I figured I’d done something different - started on the other foot, skipped a number in my count, but the next night it was the same.  471.  That was three months ago.  Last night it was down to 354.

I still run, but it’s not the same anymore.  Now I run to mark the passage of time, counting down the days until my ankles are permanently in the waves, creating a different wake, salty and cold and hungry.

The media doesn’t care yet.  They’ve done a handful of special interest pieces, but only in the sea side towns, and they just blame it on the moon or something else they have deemed unthreatening.

I’ve started writing a contingency plan - homes on stilts, free swimming lessons, the potential evolution of fins over time.  I can’t help but wonder if we are going back in time.  Reverse evolution.  Back to the water.  We did it wrong.  Maybe if we hind out in the oceans long enough the earth will have time to recover - turn green again.  Then it’ll be time for round two.  Growing legs again.  Maybe we’ll be taller this time so we can stay above sea level for longer.  We’s have to learn to walk again.  Sometimes at night I lie on my floor and try to imagine what it will be like, trading slippery flippers back for feet with toes.  I wonder if I’ll be excited to feel the sand again, or if it will just come out feeling rough and wrong.  I’ll lie on the floor and twitch my legs back and forth like fins, rolling to my side, taking those first fumbling steps like a fawn - shakey but certain that this is the way you are supposed to be.