The shells lined up nicely.
"At attention," the conch yelled.
He was curled black, with boiled blue spikes.
And so they stayed, in a perfect line against the wall,
until the wave,
washing ashore, it plucked three.
One was an abalone,
almost full grown,
with five holes descending down its left side.
A sheen of gold and silver out,
murky indigo and forest green in.
He lost grip first,
and was pulled into an incoming breaker.
The second was a conch.
Chocolate and vanilla swirls coated the outer layers
leading in to slight pink.
Her name was Neapolitan.
She was once an adult shell of the queen conch,
washed ashore and set into a line by small hands,
that were gentle and soft.
Zander
A soft voice called.
Inhaled by the mouth of the ocean,
exhaled into a bout of seaweed.
She was lost.
The last,
was a cowry shell.
He was old,
or at least he imagined so.
This was not the first time he had washed ashore,
nor had he figured, would it be the last.
His back was ivory white
with brown speckles,
in such a pattern
that he imagined himself to be, at times, a turtle.
He had first felt and then saw reflections of himself in sea glass. He was gathered in a bucket and rubbed so that his design reverberated until he felt, every shimmer of himself.
Knowing not what lay ahead,
but understanding,
he held no grip and went where the ocean led.
It's getting dark Zander.
The others gasped,
in horror their screams rasped.
"Save us. Plea...se he...l...p."
As another wave crashed into the wall and stole four more,
again,
till all were cast away from the wall
to be laden across the expanse of sand.
Soft brown eyes stared,
at the empty holes,
where shells had been placed,
as decorations to a most deserving sand castle.
Turrets and towers,
hard packed by child hands,
with a red flag flapping to the sea breeze.
A crude skull was drawn,
for it was a pirate fascination that encapsulated this year.
He had spent hours seeking and finding,
the perfect art,
to be the binding,
to hold his wall against all defense,
but all had fallen in the first wave of battle.
"Oh well," he muttered.
He would try again tomorrow.
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