San Diego, warm sun, cool water, hot sand, the smell of the ocean, there really is nothing like it, that was what I was told anyway. But what I see is not the picture painted in my mind. The water is freezing; I am Jack in floating the sub-zero sea after the Titanic sank, hopeless. I can feel the seaweed at my feet, they stick to me like suction cups, they are thick, and oddly warm, like what crime shows make a person’s innards sound like. The seaweed is loose, and dead. The water hiding the weeds is a murky, dingy brown. No matter how hard my parents try to encourage me, I will not get in the water, at least not any deeper than I am; the water is up to my calves. My stomach turns at the thought of being chest deep in the ice cold, brown, seaweed water, I feel as if I will be pulled under by a giant squid. After a minute or two in the watery prison, I break free on to the dry, hot, yellow sand. I peel the remaining seaweed off my body, and walk to my beach chair. My legs are sticky, as if a small child had smeared syrup on them. I can feel the grains of salt form the ocean sink into my pores, making my body tired and heavy.

I sit in the shade, when the smell hits. Rotting bodies, mold, and wet garbage. There really are no words that can accurately describe this foul stench. Then the buzzing starts. It sounds like a phone vibrating on a table. And then the sky grows dark. And the buzzing gets louder. It registers that flies are infesting the beach in a biblical plague like manner. The flies seem come from the seaweed lying on the beach. They stampede through the air and land on everything and everyone. I my family and I beg my dad to leave, but he refuses, saying that the flies will leave. I feel sick, but he is right, the flies leave, and they return, and they leave, and they return, and again, and again, and again, so we leave the beach, and I want to leave San Diego.

I walk along the deep brown cobblestone, in front of the hotel, I am drained of energy. Eyes half shut, I stumble, like a drunk, into the hotel room. I do not bother putting on my pajamas, taking off my makeup, or petting my dog. I collapse on the bed and might as well be in a coma, for how deep I sleep. I wake to my father’s voice, telling my mom, brother, and I to get up and that we are going to the beach again. I awake to mascara on my pillow, and the sun in my eyes. I am not fully awake until I reach the beach, realizing my fate. My father makes me get into the water. I peel the seaweed off once I get out, I sit in the beach chair heavy, waiting for the plague to begin again, and I wait for them to leave. I go back to the hotel. I sleep. And the next morning I wake up, go to the beach, pull the seaweed from my legs again, and watch the flies again. We finally go to the hotel room, shower and pack. I have never missed my home so much. I have never wanted to leave a hotel so much. I have never missed school so much.

We load our luggage in to the car, it takes about thirty minutes. We drive for four hours. Back to Arizona. Back to the hot, dry, grass less sate I call home. Back to the place where there are no flies, only bees. Back to the place where there is no seaweed, only small pebbles that sit in the bottom of your shoe and dig into your heel. Back to life. Back to work. Back to school. Back to familiarity. Back to Arizona.