A Long Stretch of Beach

By A. Fleury

A/N: Like a lot of my incomplete stories, I was all excited by the initial idea for the story. And like a lot of my incomplete stories, I ran out of steam, or got bored with it, or got another idea that overshadowed this one. Maybe sometime I’ll get around to finishing it.

It was going to be an introspective look into Sally. Remembering her father’s birthday on the shorelines of the corrupted Robotropolian shoreline. I was also going to throw Snively in there (You know me...I just can’t get enough of him!) But it didn’t get far.

**

There had been a time when the air didn't burn her throat. When the waves didn't crash up yellow and frothing upon the rocks. A time when the water didn't feel like acid burning at her toes. And a time, a glorious time, when the beach hadn't been gray and dingy browns, filled with trash and sludge, and the fish and seals had thrived in the clear depths.

It was his birthday, and on this day, and other days when a King's schedule allotted some personal time, he had brought her down to the shining sands of Mobtropolian bay.

Today was King Acorn's birthday and Sally stood alone on the shores of Robotroplian bay. The toxic wind ruffled her auburn hair, bright against the deadened sky.

"Daddy...I wish you were here. Even now. Even now we could run barefoot, and you could hold my hand like a little child. We would burn our soles on the poison sand but who can feel pain through such happiness?"

She broke into sobbing suddenly, her flooded eyes staring out at what once had been sapphire sea, what once had been golden sand with razorweed and flowering bushes growing hardy there, what once had been an endless cerulean sky, and the smell! She could still smell the wet vegetation and the salt, and the moist air...it had smelled like LIFE. Like an exotic life; like mermaids gliding through the waters beautiful and free. She could close her little-girl eyes and float away.

Now it was gone.

Gone just like her father.

She turned and looked to the east, into the depths of the city where the command center rose up, as large and foreboding as the man it housed.

He was the man who had taken everything away.

She clenched her fist and turned back to the waves, the tears running freely.

She licked her tongue out and caught them as they dribbled over her lips.

Midnight-colored eyes closed and she tried to hold on to the taste, the salt in her mouth. She was a little girl again and she was floating on her back looking up at the clouds. Above her, her father stood with the water lapping about his stomach. Relaxed but protective, ready to scoop her up should she need the support.

"Daddy, swimming isn't hard. I knew how to do it by watching. But it was harder than it looked. I thought I could pull it off so easily. But I struggled. You lifted me up when I couldn't breathe, when I was coughing liquid from my throat.

“Sally, many things look easy. But it is a matter of experience. When you have experience you can make a hard task look simple. But swallowing water is part of the experience. You can never learn anything unless you are willing to dive into it, my dear. Try and try, Sally, and soon you will be a dolphin in the waves, and everyone will marvel at how easy your swimming looks...

But you will know the truth.”

She believed him. He was so wise. The things he'd told her as a child...they had never led her wrong.

She stared out over the waves, grimacing. Even her tears tasted tainted, like the air had contaminated them as soon as they rolled from her eyes. She didn't know if she could sustain herself on the knowledge he'd given. She wanted him here. To tell her the answers to all of the questions that clouded her young mind, to guide her hand when she didn't know what path to chose.

But he'd taught her, that she must sometimes find answers for herself, within herself...

She could see him, grinning as she mounted her first bicycle.

"You have to balance yourself. That's all I can tell you. You have to figure it out yourself. Come on, now, don't be afraid."

She pushed off the ground with her feet and glided. She had it. But no. She fell and scrapped her knees.

To balance, to find the answer. She wiped away the pain-tears, determined not to give up. She fell again.

"Daddy, how do you do this?"

"I can't tell you. You have to learn it yourself."

But how can I learn something...when someone doesn’t tell me how?

She got on the bike again, and suddenly, it clicked. She understood.

She circled the garden pathway with the wind in her fur and her wet-cheeked face held high, eyes squinting against the sun. So proud.

You told me all I needed to know. The rest was up to me, daddy.

‘To rule with honor, that is our family credo,’ that is what he'd told her, as a young princess. All she could do was follow those basic guidelines. The rest...was up to her to discover. The paths to choose.

But it was so hard, sometimes, so much harder than balancing a bicycle.