---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSJ3ChWf7Sg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQBJz6hc6PY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bU5KV1XIk0

---

Clouds on motionless air, the ocean beneath flowed outwards. Gray salt water broke against colorless rocks, the mist drifted over pearl sand. Sea shells of pinks, sapphires, and oranges on the sand, little crabs dodged to safety between them. Cypress trees on hills of wild grass, their shapes stood dark and full. The ends of the bay were clear, on one side, rising hills, on the other, sand dunes and long roads. Steam stacks rose from the power plant. Cars on the highway passed by and disappeared. Yachts at sea, they moved through the water silently. Ice plants waited. Seagulls played. A sea otter swam in calm waters, content.

Her car pulled into the empty lot. The engine shut off. Sand birds scampered, or starred. She reached into the back seat, grabbed her phone out of a bag. Music still played on the radio. Sunlight on the diamond necklace around her neck, her eyes reflected a soft blue in the light. Her gray fur sparkled as she moved, long, dark hair pulled behind tall wolf ears. Rose perfume drifted, gently, and a streak of gold fur on her cheek shimmered. Underneath a maroon sweatshirt, a bottle of raspberry tea rested. She put the sweatshirt on, grabbed the tea. She looked towards the ocean, its endlessness, waves crashing in the distance, and opened the car door.

Cold winds fell inland. Flowers shook. A seal on a rocky platform took a breath in, and let a bark out. She stepped out of the car. The door closed, and locked. She broke the cap off of the tea, lifted the bottle to her lips. She took a sip of the sweet drink, then returned the cap onto the bottle before moving down to the water. A yacht passed close by, its tall sail rippling against the wind. There was a family aboard it, happy. It was soon gone. Then there was nobody around, except her.

She walked down the beach, eventually stopping and laying down in the warm sand to rest. Her paw lifted scoops of sand, then spread to trickle the sand downwards. A white cloud passed by overhead. She thought it looked like a dinosaur. A sand bird ran up to her. Her blue eyes turned to meet its jet eyes. Hi bird, she thought. She lifted more sand with her paw, and let it slip down. The bird puffed up as she raised her paw, and shrank when she lowered her paw. It looked ridiculous, and she let out a soft laugh. The sand bird ran away, afraid, but returned again. “What are you doing,” she thought. She repeated the question twice more, emphasizing the syllables, challenging the irony. She played with the sand a little longer, laughing at the small sand bird, then rolled over, turning her back to the creature.

The wolf laid in the sand, feeling the wind flip her hair, rub against the fur on her cheek. Finally, she grabbed her phone out of her shorts pocket. There were no messages. There were no missed calls. She had no one worth her time contacting. A screenshot of a poem was opened, which she read, and laughed at after completing it. “Wasted words and wasted time,” she thought. There is nothing. That is all. The screenshot was deleted. She flipped through the pictures, stopping at the last picture of them on her phone, her favorite picture of them. They were standing on a Santa Cruz street, snouts pressed together, looking into each other’s eyes. His paws were held under her face, her arms around his waist. The sun had been setting, the city buildings a heavy, blurred shape, and the ocean a dark blue. She starred at the picture, then, at last, looked away.

Seagulls far away at sea circled and splashed. The sand bird was gone. She couldn’t see or hear the seal. Clouds were thinning into meaningless wisps. Unsatisfied, she flicked the phone into the sand. She hugged herself, and closed her eyes. If she had fallen asleep, it was only momentarily. Memories of him in her mind, memories of them in her dreams, she could not escape them. Her heart began to race, her paw reached up to feel the small diamonds on the necklace. They were mirrors, tiny, cut gems, filtering light, suffering only the prettiest of rays. Even among the pure white sand, they were unrivaled. She sat up, breathing a little harder. The necklace was unclasped, held in both her paws. Teal paw pads turned the diamonds a minty blue, and she wondered what he would have said about that. What would he have said, about the pearl sand, wild birds, ocean waves or fathomless sky? Ice plants and the historic power plant, quiet, observing everything, and the wolf couldn’t stop them. What was she to do? A pressure in her chest pushed down, relentlessly. Tears formed in her eyes, rare and painful, and fell down onto the necklace, obscuring the beauty of the diamonds. Disillusionment and broken vows, and her heart felt reaffirmed in its position that she was worthless. Her cynicism and skepticism bred from degradation and faked feelings. She stood up, walked knee high into the cold ocean, and threw the necklace as far as she could. It sank without a sound.

The environment, in its apathetic state, begged her to leave. Only desolation and waves drowning in their own sorrow accompanied her. She looked around, felt the bitter water biting at her, felt the wind glide around her. In a moment, she had gathered up her phone and bottle of tea, deleted the last picture of them, and walked to her car. Sand clumped in her hair, worked its way into matted fur. Ugly patterns streaked the fur on her cheeks, trails of dried tears. With tired eyes and an unwavering emptiness, she unlocked her car, threw her phone into the backseat. She sat in the car, watching the ocean. It had been there for thousands of years, and would be there for many more, while she would be here and gone and replaced, forgotten. The constant nothingness of everything persisted, and she hated it, depended upon it. The reassurance balanced by defeat, it was all that she knew. The car engine turned over, and the parking lot was soon empty again.