It’s Important to Know Your Limits

My feet are wet again. They were dry this morning but water appeared at my heels. Slowly lapping its way along, it moved until it was past my toes, extending out of my field of vision. It took a while, and now even the tops of my feet are covered in water. Horrible crashing sounds fill my head. I don’t know what to do. How does this keep happening?

The water went away, the same way it came. I felt miserable and kept hoping something would change, and it finally did. I’m not sure how though, I didn’t even notice a difference. But suddenly I saw the water was definitely lower than it had been. Soon, I could see my feet again. I desperately hoped, prayed even, that the water would leave entirely…and my prayers were answered. The terrible noise is still there, but is softer. My feet are a bit deeper in the sand now, but I can live with that, so long as the water stays gone.

The water came back, with awful thunder. I don’t understand where this is coming from. When I look down, there is sand. When I look ahead, there is scrub. When I look up, there is sky. Nothing I see explains what is happening to me. I’m trying to count how long it takes for the water to appear, and how long it stays before it leaves again. I’m trying to make sense of the cacophony. I think I can figure out how to change this by studying it.

I’ve developed an app that measures the rate of speed the water travels up each foot, along with the water’s salinity and viscosity. My app also evaluates the particulate matter in the water to confirm whether the water is the same water each time, or if different water is appearing, or if it’s a set of waters from rotating sources. My app records the sounds in the air and is attempting to translate them into some kind of language. While studying this data, the alarming increase in sand around each footwell was brought to my attention (when I lost my balance and fell over).

Sitting with my feet buried has given me new opportunities to study the water, as it appears even earlier around my seated body than it does around my feet. There has been no measurable change in the sound.

The water continues to leave behind sand when it goes. I’ve updated my app to measure the relative rates of sand deposit at my legs (previously: feet) and my torso, for further analysis.

I feel like I’m really making progress.