Just Sand

M. Stanley Bubien

"It's great!" he laughed. "Great!"

I don't know. He looked pretty, like, normal. More tan than most people, yeah, but fully clean-cut.

"And this one! Wonderful!"

But he was dorkin' out big-time.

I'd been sitting on my towel, checking him out. He kept picking stuff off the sand and grinning and carrying-on like it was the bomb or something. Couldn't see what it was all about, though---just sand and water to me. Okay, killer waves today, but man, that ain't what he was all for.

"Beautiful!" He glanced around. Before I could turn away, our eyes met.

I went stiff.

"Come on!" He winked. "See for yourself."

All right, so I was curious. I got up and marched down the shoreline. My parents wouldn'tve been too thrilled, but oh well.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Here!" he said, extending his hand with thumb and forefinger locked. I stared, like, wondering what was going on, but he gestured with his chin. Slowly, I stuck out my open palm, and he dropped something in it It was totally tiny!

"Dude?" I lifted it to eye-level. "What the---" Sand! This bozo just gave me a piece of sand!

"Have you ever?" He grinned.

"Huh?"

"It's unique! Hard. Cubic. And the coloring changes ever so slightly by the way the sunlight hits it. Astounding! Marvelous! You've never seen another like it!"

"Whoa, man. Are you, like, nuts or something?" I waved my arm. "There's sand everywhere."

He didn't even look, not even---went dead silent and frowned. Full-on frowned.

Copyright ©2000 M. Stanley Bubien. All Rights Reserved.

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August, 2000 Issue #52

256 Words

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