THE BEACH INCIDENT

Cedric and I were best friends and spent the week with his family at a beach cabin. Like any 8-year-olds, we spent our time playing in the water or building sand castles.

One morning, Cedric and I took a walk down the beach. The sun’s rays hit my skin like a blanket fresh from the dryer. The surface of the sand was already heated by the sun, and as my feet sank down further with each step, I could feel cool sand between my toes. The smell of the salt water was almost strong enough to taste and I could hear the rustling of the trees to my right. We continued to walk and came across several Portuguese Man-of-wars that had washed up on the sand. They were one big bubble with a long slimy blue tail used for stinging. They looked like little clear miniature balloons. We popped each one with our heels and buried them so their tails wouldn’t sting anyone who stumbled upon them.

When we reached a good spot, I decided to dig a hole. My fingers clawed through the millions of smooth, loose grains of sand and the more I dug, the more moist the sand became between my fingers. Sand stuck beneath my nails and finally, I touched a small pool of cool water.

Having finished that task, Cedric and I had a sand fight. We packed wet sand into a ball and smoothed it over with dry sand to keep it solid. We hurled sandballs at eachother while loose pieces broke off in mid-air. The wet clumps that did not reach its destination, hit the ground with a thud.

I decided to rinse off after the war ended and marched down to the water, sand covering my body from head to toe. Waves crashed in front of me and ended on the shoreline with a fizzing sound like a freshly opened can of soda.

Suddenly, I began grabbing at my arms and legs as Cedric looked at me in wonderment. It felt like thousands of little needles were poking me. I finally realized I was being stung by Portuguese man-of-wars and as I hopped out of the water, a lady sitting nearby watched. “Rub sand on it,” the lady instructed. As I did this, I turned to see two man-of-wars gliding down the sand back into the water. Cedric ran to pop one and the other slipped away. The man-of-war had touched my arm and wrapped it’s tail around the other, while the second man-of-war’s tail did the same thing to my legs.

As we walked back to the beach house, I could feel the stinging pain go further up my legs like a slow moving lightning bolt and eventually it gave me a sense of paralysis. Cedric had to try and carry me the rest of the way back. We made our way up to the patio and as I lay on the hard cement, Cedric’s sister came and poured vinegar all over me. The sour smell of the liquid was so strong it stung my nose, but amazingly it alleviated the pain. That was the end of our day at the beach…temporarily.