© Bryan Beal

The sand was hot under Reena's feet as she walked with her feet periodically washed by the incoming waves of the Pacific Ocean rolling up the beach. She let herself be lulled by the cooling touch of the salty liquid on her skin. The course massages of the grains under her feet delighted her and recalled times past, times lost in the mist of her own forgetfulness. She struggled to make out faces and sounds, more frustrated with the wasted effort to drag the details from the shadowed recesses of what she thought was there. No faces came forward. No voices called out to her.