"Find Christ At The River"
As soon as the brown heap landed in her lap, Sylvie knew hell could come as quickly as she wanted it to. It was wet and cold when it hit her, splattering into a million little blobs at the base of the white swimsuit making its first appearance all summer. Grainy chunks spread out across wide thighs, over the hibiscus plant neatly drawn around the right one, peppered with pores. It wasn’t even the good kind of sand; the white, wispy, Sandals resort in Cabo kind of sand. It was ruddy, river dirt sand. The kind people who didn’t live close enough to a proper coast had to settle for. The kind that when it sticks to your toes makes them sooty instead of ashy. The kind that stains your beach towel. The kind that when sugar-high kids play with it, it becomes mud pies instead of sandcastles, and when it lands in your lap—the lap of a stranger trying to sunbathe—it doesn't sting so much as make you stew. She imagined herself grabbing a fistful of it into her hands, snatching up the blonde g