He has tiny feet. The big toe of the right slightly twisted inward due to the arrogance of the bunion; the defeated arch bears sores, meandering varicose veins as well. The curious thing is that the other foot, which rests edge-on on the rare sand, shows no marks of damage, or age, another form of damage. The sympathetic twist of the neck against the chest, both hands resting on the thick legs that peek through the gaps in the white terry robe. Despite the broths of sleep, he has not abandoned the needles intertwined with the fabric. Of course, she knew how to succumb to the influence of the coastal sleeping pill, in a secluded corner of the shore, on the other side of the tents that absorb the persistent gusts of wind, next to a set of pale plastic chairs, yellow umbrellas, a yew set. Twenty-nine degrees, warm air.
The boy comes running, as if he were being chased by a bear. His heart beats violently and reverberates with pumps of blood in his neck vein. Confident to his mother that she buried her fear to finally ride the borer and glide over the foamy hump that the ocean makes when it meets the mainland, is the only thing that motivates him to be there. Grandma wakes up, startled. Ah what, oh ha. The little one on legs leaves the fleeting encounter, runs off, and the lady returns to the ball.
Here the devotees of leisure tune in to the beach ritual: chair, canvas, umbrella, conservative, round of mate, flip-flops, picnic, splash. To tell the truth, it is a fascinating temple. Evanescent, ethereal, deceptive prints perforate with prodigious harmony the colossal container of water born in the subsoils of the earth. Shreds of scattered meat, the trunks sedated by the perseverance of the wind, the bladders squeezed in the Atlantic consommé. Behind, far beyond the human soup, stretches a pier made of stones, stretched out like an arm over the roaring sea. On their backs follow one another the fishermen and the lines that vibrate in the background, removing the container in search of dinner. The surf kids, addicted to neoprene, hugging the boards. Far from the sea, behind a palisade of heavy bushes, an imposing tower of woven iron rises that lies on a fleshy carpet of cat’s claws with violet flowers; at the top, a water tank with the name of the spa. With more than two kilometers long, the beach where I spend my days has a steep slope. Just below the gap formed by the palisades, people crowd together.
At the end of the day (OFF) the temperature will drop slightly, then the air will return fresh and clear, pristine air that will cover the hydric circus like a lush mantle. The tents will be emptied, there will be no sachets of oranges to throw into the bins, lifeguards will go to their homes, the inns will be closed until the next day, when the factory of expectations returns (ON) to open the gates. Before leaving the complex, scan from above. I mentally structure a review of my very few summer vacations on the Atlantic coast. Alone, as a couple or with my parents and siblings. The pale image comes to me, perhaps somewhat distorted, of the iconic photo of Weegee, Coney Island at noon on Saturday, in which hundreds of thousands of bathers are captured by the camera’s magnetism; I chain it to James Ensor’s Ostend Bathers, painted at the end of the 19th century. And I stop; I have to exfoliate the patina of salt and protective cream that strangles me.
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