A Day at the Beach

The people sunning on the makeshift beach screamed in what seemed like unison. Out to sea, one of their number who had been surfing had been snapped up by a great white that had somehow gotten too close to shore. There was a great stampede of flip flops, beach towels, and buckets and spades as the beach goers ran away from the sea-bound menace.

Ken, his ascot a bright purple over his tanned torso, helped Barbie over the uneven surface of the beach, urging her to go faster with tugs on her elbow. Still Barbie tiptoed over the beach, seemingly unable to run on flat feet.

The family of pigs that had decided to come on a beach holiday that morning hurriedly packed up their towel, ball, and umbrella while looking on in horror at the grisly scene out at sea. The youngest, wearing a blue unitard, cried as his favorite spade was washed out to sea and his parents pulled him away.

All over the white and blue of the beach, all of the tourists scrambled to get above the high tide marks, not thinking that they were safe as long as they were out of the water; it was mob mentality at its finest.

They were not safe even then, though, for a giant scooped them up as they left the vicinity of the water and stifled them in a giant-sized terry towel. Some were rolled up in the monstrously vast cloth for minutes, wondering if they would ever breathe again, before finally they saw the blinking, fluorescent light of day again. And then the giant imprisoned them in a cell that had holes in the walls, floors, and ceiling, partially hanging over an empty pool.

There the hapless beachgoers stayed while the giant went on to other matters. None could get a good look at the beach, much less the sea, but there was a strange roaring, slurping sound coming from that direction.

One by one, more beach goers were plucked up, stifled in the giant’s cloth, and imprisoned in the hanging cell over the empty pool. And one by one, they were crammed in to fit in the small space, arms, legs, and other body parts getting squished and squashed as more and more water dripped from their joints and orifices into the empty pool and down its drain.

Then, horrors! Another giant, smaller than the first, climbed from the water onto the beach and flung water everywhere—even into the hanging cell and the empty pool—until the first giant wrapped it in its enormous towel and curtailed its flailing. That giant’s presence was thankfully short-lived, and it removed itself from the scene after a minute or two with the first giant.

But then the first giant came back just minutes after. It passed by the empty pool with its hanging prison and stooped over the beach, reaching its grabbing hand into the ocean.

When that hand came back into the former beachgoers’ view again, in its grasp was none other than the shark that had devoured the surfer—and the surfer himself! The beachgoers’s cheers went unheard by the giant—perhaps their voices were not loud enough for the giant’s ears—as they saw that their comrade was safe and not mauled by the vicious shark. But how? None of them could fathom it.

And then they heard the giant; she was humming. Those who could see reported that she was bent over the beach again, and one of her arms was moving back and forth, something in her hand. She also had something in her ears, which explained her not having heard the beachgoers’ cries from their Swiss cheese prison.

As Mrs. Johnson finished drying the bathtub, she reached back and dropped the toy surfer and shark into the draining basket with the other bath toys.