Assignment 21: Hannah Pulley

At this very moment on the far hemisphere of a planet, someone is walking on a beach before dawn. With wind howling through trees that have anchored themselves on the dunes in the distance, the first traces of an artificial sunrise are leaking over the horizon. Lights behind a perforated dome dim as the sky lightens, mimicking stars in constellations as they used to be seen. There’s always been a chill in the air and the smell of salt in the mist blown up from an impossibly large pool of water, which rolls and crashes in familiar patterns. Rocks and shells strewn across the sand in crescent-shaped trails marked the highest point that the waves reached, only to be washed away several hours later. The holograms of a lighthouse in the distance aren't here anymore, neither are the lights of shipping vessels that would be passing miles from the shore in the night. When morning fully arrives, it will be much brighter. Almost as bright as a few people remember it was elsewhere. Which is not here.