Upside Down Kris

Me vs. the Sea It happened last week. It was powerful and frightening–the stuff that stories are made out of. I was rolling in the sea. No, more like I was being pummeled by the sea. Liters and liters of it poured over my head, pouncing on me and then drawing back. I knew not to panic: hadn't I learned anything from lifeguard training?  Shouldn't I just stand up and put my feet on the sand? Instead, I reached my hand over my hand, instinctively searching for a sense of up because down had fallen away from me. I suddenly knew why people drown: it's easy to be sucked in by the power of the sea's pushes and the loss of a sense of direction. I needed to breathe. All of a sudden, the surface surfaced as my hand stuck out. I pushed up and gulped air before the sea rolled in again.  I staggered to my feet but another wave crashed into me, pulling me under again. This time the water was shallow enough for me to find my ground. The sea was ferocious. I just wanted to get out uns...

The Flight of the Butterflies They were flitting over the sea, entering and exiting each other's orbits like two satellites searching for the same signal. They crossed invisible yet obvious paths in the sky over the sea. They were graceful and seemed in love, so much so that they spiraled toward each other endlessly. They were so lovely that it took me a minute to realize why the sight stood out, apart from their inherent beauty. Then, it hit me: two butterflies fluttering their ivory wings over a feild was a common sight. The same gossamer creatures circling over a sea where they couldn't land was quite another. Why were they doing their mating dance over the sea? How had they gotten there? I had seen similar specimen glibly gliding over the flowers planted in the nearest plaza, and was equally as entranced by them. But the plaza was pretty far away for a tiny butterfly. Had they flown all the way to the beach to catch a glimpse of the vastness of the sea, maybe to take a chan...