The beach was even busier than yesterday. Youth was everywhere. The only people Trent spotted who appeared older than him were the shore-bound fishermen stationed in their lawn chairs in the shallows.

They staked out their spot. At Jasmine’s bouncing insistence, Melissa helped her wriggle into her water wings. Trent, overdressed in long trousers and a jacket, refused to lower himself down onto the granules. Nor would he heed the voiceless beckon of the bluffs. He looked out across the water and wondered how many more days of sunlight were left.

“Trent!”

He turned to see Melissa hunched before Jasmine. “For the fourth time, where is her lifejacket?”

Trent looked about foolishly. “I…I must have left it at the cottage.”

“I wanna swim, mommy!”

Melissa sighed. “Can you go back and get it?”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind,” she huffed, pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll go. Watch her, please. She’s got her water wings, so she can go in, just not too far.”

“Right.”

“Trent?”

He looked at her.

“Watch her.”

He pushed his mouth into what he hoped was a reassuring grin. Judging by Melissa’s reaction, it was not.

Trent took Jasmine’s hand. Her palm was like a tiny silk pillow. Together they parted the water.

Jasmine slid her fingers free and began to stomp the shallows. Her steps caused water to bounce up like miniature fountains in the air. The tide flowed and ebbed. Overhead, gulls spun out precise spiral patterns.

A slow and silent tide also touched Trent from within. In no time it subsumed him. Trent saw the sky as a great murky ocean, pouring its Dark Matter down like sand through a sieve.

The scope of it, the indifference it exuded as it went through its bewildering machinations—these stifled Trent.

All was silent and dim; human activity was fading, like candles guttering out one by one.

But then the candles began to brighten, raging against this meta-darkness. There was a flaring.

There was a crescendo of ugly sounds.

Trent snapped his head, and the Dark Universe was once more hidden behind a bright and busy mask. A stark image filled his eyes: a tiny figure in a shell of many colours, twitching just below the water’s surface.

“Mister!” yelled a male voice.

The fishermen had sprung from their lawn chairs as quickly as their aged bones would allow. Their poles were jerking about as though they had live wires in their spinners.

The men were waist-deep in the water now. One had scooped a bulky shape from the waves while the other ever-so-gently manoeuvred the fishing line.

The sight of Jasmine’s head hanging limp and heavy from the crook of the fisherman’s arm summoned in Trent a feeling that was far worse than being emptied. It mangled his heart. The alpha and omega of all life blazed from the crushed and dripping form that was drooped over the old man’s arms like a boned fish.