She built it at dawn, when the tide was still asleep and the shore belonged only to the wind. A house of sand—walls smoothed by palm and patience, windows shaped like crescent moons, a doorway wide enough for a wish to pass through.
Every grain held a memory. The fine, pale sand from her childhood beach. The darker, coarser grains from a trip she took alone. A few sparkles of mica that caught the light like forgotten promises.
The first wave came not as a crash but as a whisper. A licking of foam at the foundation. The walls began to soften. The crescent windows drooped. The doorway sighed and rounded into a slow collapse.