Srednivashtar

Robert never came to the beach when his friends and family invited him – for a swim, for a picnic, for a party – and so they stopped asking. Robert didn’t hate the sea. It was more complicated than that. He was a poor swimmer, true, and justly afraid of drowning. He was afraid, too, of the myriad things that lived in the sea – of tentacles that stung and spines that pierced. Of saw-like teeth that rent flesh from bone. When Robert thought of the sea, however, mostly what he felt was awe. Deep within him there was this magnetism – a twin pull of dread and fascination when he tried to imagine the sheer vastness of the ocean. Its unfathomable depths. That’s what drove him to visit the beach as often as he did – almost every week. He would pick one of the smaller, unpatrolled beaches nearby and always at times less likely to draw frolicsome crowds. He would kick off his thongs and pick his way through rockpools, letting the sharp rocks make tiny cuts in his soles and then shuddering