&.
nothing beautiful can last
SPIRAL CASE
I
She wakes up ashore, looking at the cloudy sky, feeling a few drops of soft rain falling on her face. She extends her left hand upwards, startling herself with her limb entering her vision. She is curious.
The arm twists and bends at her command. Its shorter appendages are far more limited. She closes her fist, then expands it, and then she realizes she can move each finger on its own. She experiments with the shapes she can make.
She sits on the sand. She watches how the water moves back and forth on the sand, and observes the gradual difference between the wet and the dry. When the water is close to her, she tries to grab it, closing her fist once her hand pieces the waves. She's covered in water.
She moves her legs. They are longer than her arms, and much stronger. The appendages at its end are samll, and far less agile. She moves her toes, trying to close them in a fist, then trying to move them all separately. She can't.
She can see some small colorful objects, and some sticks. She gets up and walks toward them. The objects are hollow and their shapes form a spiral towards their center. She picks them up and tries to see through the hole, meeting a small creature. The creature is aggressive, and sprays her face with a black substance, startling her and causing her to drop the object to the ground. The substance smells bad, but is not impossible to tolerate. She grabs it once more, and spitefully throws it to the sea.
She picks up the stick. It looks like it broke off from something. It is black and extremely hard. Both ends are sharp. Something in her gut tells her to keep it.
She walks away towards the trees.