The Sun Is Out

A moment on the beach.

Written for a beach story theme on the Me & Thee list.

“Look around you, Starsk. All these people out here, having fun, playing games, enjoying the sun, the waves, the fresh air, the sea breezes—”

“The sand,” grumbled his partner. “Dammit, Hutch, why does sand have to be so—so sandy. Huh? Why does it have to get everywhere? I had a perfectly good enchilada here, until those damned ‘sea-breezes’ of yours came along and blew sand into it. Now I might just as well be chewing dirt. If I keep eating this, my teeth will be all worn down like a camel’s, and next thing you know, I’ll just be mumbling away in the background and no-one’ll have a clue what I’m talking about, and—”

“Whaddya mean, no-one will have a clue? No one ever has a clue what you’re talking about, pal. So you can just eat away. Nothing’ll change.”

Starsky merely gawped at his partner, temporarily rendered speechless by the sheer unfairness of what he had just heard. Then, with a mental shrug, he bit into his enchilada. Hutch was in one of his moods again, and there was no sense fighting it. You just had to go with the flow and hope it didn’t last too long. And Hutch in a “isn’t the world a beautiful place” mood was a definite improvement on Hutch in a “this job stinks” mood, and probably worth a bit of sand in his lunch.

Shifting on the rug Hutch had produced from the back of his car, Starsky became all too aware that lunch was not the only place the sand had gotten in to. I hate sand. How can anyone think this is fun unless they’re five years old and into building with it? Or burying their dad up to his neck—

No, he couldn’t. Could he? It would be mean. Their first whole day off for more than a week. He couldn’t do that to Hutch.

But the temptation stayed, lurking wickedly in the back of his mind, as he finished his lunch and listened to more of Hutch’s eulogizing on the scene before them. After a while, he tuned out, just grunting in what he hoped were the right places. Lying on his stomach, the sun felt hot on his back and he dozed, pleasantly aware of the sounds around him, his partner’s voice, waves splashing gently on the sand, kids squealing as they ran in and out of the water…

A beach ball hitting his leg jerked him awake, and he sat up abruptly. A couple of kids, about ten years old, ran up to reclaim their property.

“Sorry, mister. We didn’t mean to hit you.”

“Hey, no harm done. It’s fine,” he reassured them, and they ran off with their ball.

Looking round, he saw that Hutch had fallen asleep too, and now lay sprawled on the edge of the rug, dead to the world.

A grin tugged at one corner of Starsky’s mouth. He knew he shouldn’t do it, he knew it was childish, and would probably make his partner really mad, but the opportunity was there, right in front of him, and it just seemed too good to miss. Getting up onto his knees, he reached his hands out for his first scoop of sand. Then another.

They never did get all the sand out of that rug. But remembering what happened when Hutch finally extricated himself from his sand interment and dealt with Starsky, it was more than worth it.