I sat with them, all of them. Faces that I would learn, then forget. We were lined like prisoners on the sand.
Our hands compelled by creation, to stack the stones, into towers. Like the homes in the sand. My knees imprinted themselves in the sand, and stack began with a small forgotten stone; new in its mysteries. Wandering my eyes fell to the horizons sea. A wave, rabid and frothing, approaches.
My hand slips and my stones fall. I begin again, the ingrained task. Towering my uncertain contrasting stones. My eye wander to another, invisibly chained convict in the sand.
She builds her tower, with a nonchalant care, an ease I didn't think possible, she stacks her stones. Her stones seem familiar, while I am unable to see their edges and the full extent of their being, I find a familiarity I cannot place. A glace to the waves and one to me, she lingers on me.
For a moment we both linger, trapped again, in each others view. I begin to form a stone for them, a stone of my perspective, she does as well. An exchange of mineral and mind begins. Her stone to me unique and alien a confusion of mares and markings, that I cannot fathom.
Our hands both slip, and our towers cascade, we linger a moment, and again begin to build. I take my veteran stones, and prepare. I focus deeply, though strange, I construct my tower again, unique to me. Small shaken stones form the base to carry the weight of the new sturdy stones. The tower grows.
The snarling wave comes and churns my tower, misplacing my stones, spattering them along the sand. I build again, with more stones in my collection. To build my flawed monument to memory.