Oystercatcher Tide Pools what an entrance

Tuck had traveled a long way to get where he was now—and where he was now sucked. It was cold and it was windy and he hated it. Tuck was a summer child, born in June, and by the time he’d been old enough to remember anything, it had been the height of summer. He remembered splashing in the water at the base of a waterfall, knocking his siblings over and laughing at them—and then getting angry when they did the same to him. He was always trying to recreate that first summer, so fleeting and ephemeral, but he could never make it right. By the time his second summer rolled around he’d been preparing to leave, and he’d spent up to now traveling the wilderness, wondering why he’d left in the first place. Now it was winter. When he was a boy, he’d had his parents and siblings to snuggle up with. Now he had nothing but his own fur to keep him warm and it was not enough.

The wind picked up all of a sudden and seemed to smack him in the face with salty sea air. Seagulls wheeled overhead, screeching at him—or so it seemed. “Oh yeah!” he called, to no one in particular. “Well fuck you too!” Sulkily, he continued to march along the sand, too cold and miserable to take much interest in his surroundings, which was unusual for him. On a good day, he’d have been delighted to see such strange things as tidepools, with water plants and shiny shells and little fish. Today though, he’d give anything just to find somewhere out of the wind.