Part of her was always here. Sitting at the top of a dune, she was surrounded by scrubby grass and small bushes that somehow drew enough sustenance from the sand to continue to exist year after year. She knew how they felt.

The sand on the beach below was lighter than the sand on the dune that sloped down, as if the sand that made up the dune was damp, the sand of the beach dry. This seemed unlikely, but she didn't know why else it would be.

A seagull flew up from the beach, pumping its wings, and came within a few feet of her, wheeling overhead, then circling around behind her to glide back down to the beach again. The flight up had looked pointless. The gull had obviously been working hard, and for what end? No food in mid-air.

But then there had been the glide, and she thought that probably made the effort worthwhile.

There were some smaller birds as well, darker than the off-white and gray gulls, and they flapped small dark wings very quickly, obviously trying to get somewhere as quickly as they could.

Another gull rose flapping up from the beach about fifty feet, about to her eye level, turned slightly into the breeze and floated motionless for what seemed like minutes. Wind, weight and wings combined in that moment to suspend the bird in the air with no effort at all.

That must be, she thought, nirvana for a bird. It must make all that pumping of wings worthwhile.

Yes, part of her was always here. That was one of the good things about being dead. You could be wherever you wanted.

the story of phyllis

it was a long night of drinking

the sea is high