HomeBetween Tina and the ocean were sand dunes of staggering size. Everything was staggering size when you were just under two years old. She had not known salt water since the womb. Still, the ocean called. The trip through the dunes was winding and lined with tall alien beach grass and birds whos call were entirely unfamiliar too her. What was more, the trip promised a new adventure.
She looked up to her mother with bright eyes and asked without language for permission to adventure. The sun that warmed her face grew temporarily eclipsed by her mother’s towering shadow. Mother studied daughter, and with eyes sqinting in the summer sun, she nodded. “Go ahead, baby. Run.”
Tina let go of her mother’s hand, toes digging into the sand, and ran to follow the curve of a dune as fast as her legs would let her.
flash fiction, tina