Journeys with Janine

She twist her care-free face to smile demurely at him, careful not to let the placid waves caress her above her shoulders as fear encroaches on the sides of her smile. Her ornate, gently laced blouse now damp from the azure waters and ever so slightly sheer that her russet skin shines beneath it. His flimsy pants, so well-worn they appear almost as translucent as her top, are drenched to the knee as he struggles to take the perfect picture from his carbon-copy counterfeit camera.

Behind the adolescent lovers, discarded waste lies beneath scorned palms and although “the beach” it is not, it still holds a beauty of its own. Gone are the bare-breasted beauties, gone are the perfect buttocks and the too tightly encased European body parts that littered the nearby paradise. Gone are the celebratory honeymooners snapping self portraits with camera-clutching arms spread out at an angle that uncomfortably juxtaposes their shot, gone are the gobbling group of bucket-list tickers, gone is the queue of sweltering tourists contrasted by the putrid stench of the long-drop and gone are the truck-engine driven timber long-tails that crowded every spare space of squeaky white sand.

Here the fully clothed nationals play in murky waters, away from the swarm of foreigners. Here the trampled shells are less crushed, less ruined and tender to my bare feet. She coyly glances over her shoulder at him, tossing her chin length shadowy locks away from her twinkling olive eyes. The murky indigo waters rush forward, engulfing the shore and her in their glory and she squeals, coiling away from the onslaught and in turn she glimpses us. Embarrassed (although I’m not sure between her and myself who is more so) we turn and a moment is caught but at the same time a moment is lost.