The shoal is bigger today. It keeps getting bigger. When she first came the island seemed like a long way off from the mainland. She swam to it, using an empty red and white cooler to help keep her afloat in the currents. That was months ago. Since then the island has got bigger, the season pulling the water out further and further every night, drawing the island closer to the mainland. There is a spit of reefy rock extending out from the shore of the mainland and pointing towards the island, and there are large fragments of jutting coral reaching in the other direction from the island. Like the fingers of God and Adam, and each day they come closer to touching as the water retreats and gets shallower along the shoal.

But it still seems safe. The breakers on the reef are violent and thunderous. You wouldnt be able to get across the shoal without busting yourself to pieces on the rock. Not yet at least.

The shape doesnt move, so she stands and approaches it carefully.

Its a man, buried face down in the sand, the tail of his flannel shirt whipping back and forth in the wind. Theres something about the way his legs are arranged, one knee up by the small of his back, that tells her his back is broken. Theres sand in his hair, and his fingernails are torn and blue.

She looks around again. Then she raises her foot and pokes the mans back with her toe. Nothing happens so she pokes him again, harder.

Thats when he starts squirming.

There are muffled sounds coming from his throat, strained grunts and growls frustration and pathos rather than suffering or pain. His arms begin to sweep the sand as if to make an angel. And theres a writhing, rippling movement that goes through the muscles of his body, as of a broken toy twitching with mechanical repetition, unable to right itself.

Meatskin, she says aloud.

One of the hands catches at her ankle, but she kicks it off.

She sits down beside him, leans back on her hands and braces her feet up against the torso and pushes so that the body flips over face up, leaving a crooked, wet indentation in the sand.

One arm is still flailing, but the other is caught under his back so she stays on that side of him and kneels over his exposed face.

The jaw is missing altogether, along with one of the eyes. The face is blistered black and torn. A flap of skin on the cheekbone is pulled back and pasted with wet sand, revealing the yellow-white of bone and cartilage underneath. The place where the eye was is now a mushy soup of thick, clear fluid mixed with blood, like ketchup eggs. Theres a string of kelp sticking out of the nose that makes him look almost comical as though someone has played a practical joke on him.