The little boy spread his toes out into the sand. It made a crish-crunch sound, just wet enough to splay out underneath his feet, the grains pushing and struggling on each other like a hand being pulled away from another that it desperately wants to be holding. The lake in front of him was as big as it got.

His eyes went wading. Those eyes that were full grown the day he was born, he had to grow up around them, and they still had so much to see. He could hear his mother’s voice yelling . . .

The little boy spread his toes out into the sand. It made a crish-crunch sound, just wet enough to splay out underneath his feet, the grains pushing and struggling on each other like a hand being pulled away from another that it desperately wants to be holding. The lake in front of him was as big as it got.

His eyes went wading. Those eyes that were full grown the day he was born, he had to grow up around them, and they still had so much to see. He could hear his mother’s voice yelling . . .