Between the Land and the Sea

The rough and warm sand of the beach was in perfect contrast to the constant wind. Iara took a deep breath, smelling the scent of the sea, put on her headphones, pressed play on her phone and then started her walk.

As usual, Iara carried her flip-flops between her fingers to enhance the feeling of the ocean waves as they reached the sand. Her dark hair, which was just like her native Brazilian mom's, was braided to the side; her milk chocolate skin shining in the sun while she enjoyed another late afternoon with that beautiful view as far as the eye could see.

However, before the first song on her playlist even ended, an empty and partially covered by sand plastic bottle appeared on her way. It was amazing how people seemed incapable of picking up their own trash and properly disposing of it as they left. That had happened so many times before that now Iara always had a trash bag in her pocket, so she picked up other pieces of trash she could find on her way.

Plastic bottles, beer and soda cans, cigarette butts, plastic cups, bags and wraps.

She found so many things daily that it was hard to believe she lived in a civilized world. As she strode towards the end of her walk, the weight in her hand disappeared with the sound of plastic softly hitting the sand.

She let out a groan of frustration and bent down to pick everything up all over again. Without a backup bag, she was forced to try and gather it all in her hands to take it to the nearest trashcan. Before she realized it, one of the many plastic bottles rolled down the sand until it reached the ocean and floated away; that is, until someone grabbed it and threw it back to Iara, hitting her in the back with it.

Dropping everything on the sand, the enraged girl stood up and scanned the direction from which the projectile had come, finding nothing but a boy in the ocean, staring at her not too far from where she was.

"Hey, you!" she yelled, not caring about the curious looks she got from the people around her. "Do you think throwing bottles at people is funny? Littering on the beach too? You know it can take centuries for one of these to be decomposed by nature? Why is it so hard for some people to simply look for a trash can to throw their trash in?"

She wrapped up her little speech looking at the people around her. Surprised, the boy was speechless and kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish until he decided to dive in and swim away.

She clicked her tongue and bent down once again to pick up the trash and take it to its righteous place. She had to make two trips to get rid of everything she had picked up before. When she was finally finished, Iara went home, waiting to tell her cousin, who she shared her tiny and simple apartment with, all about it and have fun with Isabella's reaction.

Iara went back to the beach almost every day that week, always in the late afternoon, after her shift at the clothing store.

Usually, she didn't pay attention to whoever was at the beach, except for the boy who had thrown the bottle at her, but just because he was super weird. For starters, he was so pale it looked like he had never seen the sun, and he was always in the ocean, far away from the people. Besides that, he kept staring at her, and that pissed Iara off. She even thought about confronting him, but he never left the water. Not even after the night had fallen and she was sure the water was very cold, since no one else could stand being in it. So, she went home, because she had to wake up early the next morning either way.

However, on Sunday, everything was going to be different. On her day off, she went to the beach at the usual time, in the late afternoon, and, once again, the boy was there.

As always, Iara pretended to ignore him and went on her walk, throwing away the garbage she found on her way. This time, however, she went down to a kind of isolated area of the beach, which had tons of brown rocks that reached into the sea.