'Seeing Red' by Priya Balachandran
The grey smoky sky shelters the beach. Heat pushes through the dense clouds, stubborn, sweaty and moist. Heavy heat. The beach at dawn is desolate, a small semicircle strip of gold silk sand. The sea is as deep blue as a newborn’s eyes, clear, almost innocent, as it laps against the sand. Further towards the skyline the fort wall and rocks reveal its’ true nature as waves crash aggressively, foaming, angry, powerful.
As the sun pierces through the overcast sky, burning off the last remnants of early morning haze, the beach fills. The brilliant blue of the sky meets the turquoise green of the sea and the sun glints off the hot sand, creating a painter’s pallet of colors that make up this paradise. Blues, greens, gold meld with the virgin white skin of fresh, new sun-lovers arriving for the first time to soak in this heavenly place.
The pleasures of early morning paradise turn to pain as one by one sunbathers transform from pale white to painful puce to angry red. The pungent smell of sun block intermingled with sea salt wafts across the beach as sun worshiper’s slap on the thick creamy white lotion on their raging red skins
The afternoon creeps in and the beach is a sea of red and pink bodies all roasting away hoping to turn into a succulent brown rather than the potential burnt blistered end result.
The tide comes in. The sun blazes relentless. Sticky, hot and a shade darker, be it red or rust, bathers gather their things. The beach empties.