A Work in Progress

by John Fleckenstein

The top layer of sand was still warm from the day’s beating sun. As Jason walked, his bare feet dug into it, feeling the cooler layers below the surface.

The sun had set about an hour before, but there was still a lingering luminosity to the western sky. To the east the sky was black with a thousand tiny stars piercing the darkness. A few wisps of clouds spread themselves out over the cosmic landscape, careful not to impede on the view of the moon.

Jason stared up at the moon as he trudged through the soft sand. It had been about a month since his last visit to Pirate’s Cove; the last full moon. The calm water reflected the moon as it gently pushed and pulled sand and small pebbles on the shoreline.

After a short walk, Jason got to the point, a tiny peninsula, where the Cove meets Port Jefferson Harbor. With the sound of lapping water on both sides of him, he sat and gazed out across the water. There was no real distinction between the water in the Cove and in the Harbor; just a seamless connection of tiny ripples surrounding Jason on his sandy peninsula. Across the harbor the chop heightened slightly as water poured through the inlet from the Long Island Sound. The north shore of Long Island hardly ever saw anything more than “a little choppy,” especially not at night.

By now the sun had vanished completely, leaving only the thin layer of warm sand as evidence of the once hot day, but even the sand was cooling as fast as the sun had set. The full moon, now with complete sovereignty in the night sky, had an ambient glow over Jason and the beach beneath him.