There was nobody else on the beach. It wasn’t a well used beach anyway, too isolated. That very thing was what Surfergirl liked. It was a week day, so she had the entire beach to herself.  She reached down with both hands, pulling at her jeans until she was able to lift her legs out of them. Then came the shirt. It was a short sleeved clingy shirt with no pockets. Even with her jeans removed, the bottom of the shirt, which had been concealed when she’d had it tucked into her jeans, now still covered most of her G-string. She pulled it off and saw that her bikini was still neatly in place, dropped the shirt onto the discarded jeans on her rug, and looked at the water. This was her day. The whole scene was calm, serene, and uniquely private and hers, especially for such a publicly accessible place. She walked slowly down to the water, and into the surf, until she was up to her waist, and then dived into the next small wave and swam freely underwater.

Each time she surfaced, she could see the bright sun glistening on the surface of the water. She swam through even the most challenging conditions with ease, her supple athletic body well able to deal with any aquatic contingency. After over two hours, she came out of the water, walked up to the rug, and saw that there was still nobody else on the beach. She picked up her towel and rubbed herself down until she was completely dry, except for her hair. She was about to lie down and cover herself with a blanket, when she noticed a large shell, as large as her head in fact. It was fairly close to her position, and yet she hadn’t seen it when she’d arrived. Surfergirl walked over, lifted it and held it to her ear, waiting to hear the sounds of the sea that were somehow reproduced in the way the wind blew through the shapes of the interiors of shells.

Instead she heard a song, a song with no words, only a vocal sound. She recalled movies with such wordless vocal singing on the soundtracks, in particular a movie set both on a beach and underwater. The tune was delightful, and made her wish that there was a real person singing it. She wondered how a shell could capture such a perfect harmony and reproduce it like this. One thing was embedded in her thoughts. She simply had to take this shell home with her.

It was late that night, when she was lying in bed, with the beautiful shell resting on the cupboard on the other side of her room, that she heard the singing again. This time it was not necessary to put the shell to her ear. The sound was louder and carried clearly across the room. She leaped out of bed and ran over to the shell, picked it up and held it closely to her chest.