out to no one in particular.

“I know it hurts, but this has to happen.”

I saw the child who had built the castle, with a few others I’d seen earlier. Those with the boy appeared shocked by what they witnessed, but not overcome by it.

“Little boy,” I said over the screaming, “you worked for so long and it was so beautiful, how can you just stand by and watch?”

Off on the boardwalk, I spotted a uniformed officer. The badge I first wanted to be far away from was suddenly a welcome sight.

The boy tapped me on the hip to get my attention back. “I’ll build a better one, a castle he can’t—”

I sprinted across the sand near the crowd and up onto the boardwalk. The officer was sipping coffee and talking to an older woman. “Officer! Officer! Please help!”

The man spun around toward me. “Is everything all right, sir?”

Incredulous, I pointed to the scene. “That! Can’t you hear that? Can’t you stop that?” I shouted, wondering how on Earth the man couldn’t hear fifty zoo animals screaming nonsense only twenty meters away.

“That?” The officer glanced over, completely oblivious. “Sir, that is just a pile of sand.”

- -- -- - - -- -- - -- - - --- - --- --

I screamed and kicked at the door to my apartment, almost breaking the doorreader… again. The thing always needed an insane number of swipes before it would recognize the chip in my wrist and let me into my own living space. I decided