April

Seven boys were buried to their necks at the beach below the Plaza San Juan Bautista.

It was like a local secret, a treatment devised in the dungeons of the Castillo de San Cristobal and that relic, high on the windward bluff above their heads, fed a handful of kites to the sky. They nearly slept, stirring the sand with the life left in their toes.

Like the daring roots of some cliffside tree, they dug themselves down to the edge of the breaker's reach, to better sense each wave's weight from beneath their blanket beach.

It took some time but each one rose then washed the sand away then climbed the bluff to go about their day.