A little girl stands alone in the ocean.
She's twirling a strand of golden hair as foam swirls around her legs. Her skin is peppered with freckles and sand, and she's rocking on her tiptoes, waiting for the perfect moment.
Her eyes squint. She covers them with her hand and chews on her lip. She's searching for something, but the sun is hot. It reflects the water in shimmers, burning her face, and she thinks maybe it's pointless, maybe she should give up, but then she sees it:
A wave in the distance.
It's coming closer... and closer... towering over the rest. She waits until it's just right, waits until she sees the white of the peak. The water is sucking away from her feet, and she clenches her teeth. She tightens her fists and takes off into the blue, running deeper and deeper into the sun.
Her footprints are faint.
Her eyes are bright.
Her hands have never known death. Her mind has never been touched. She will never remember this moment; in the future, the memory will be stolen from her, but still she runs.
The wave crashes overhead, and her body is overtaken. Her head is swallowed up by the water, her fingers thrashing in the salt.
She lets herself fall.
She lets the ocean run its course, and when the current finally settles, when the shells burrow back into the ground, and form bubbles in the sand, she's still there. She's coughing up saltwater, her face is raw, and her fingers are wrinkled; but she takes a deep breath, she rises to her feet,
and she does it all again.