Circa Early 1996

Age 15

I am sitting in a semi-circle of other people my age, people I do not know. In the middle of our semi-circle, back against the wall of a great red and white striped lighthouse, sits an old lady in a rocking chair. She is a very grandmother-ish figure, but I don't recognize her face. We are on a great peninsula (maybe 50 feet wide) that stretches miles into the ocean. We are sitting on swimming pool tile. At the edge of the waters, the tile goes vertically down five or six feet, and the entire ocean is crystal clear and tiled like it was the floor of a great swimming pool. Even '5 Ft.' tiles line the wall of the edge we sit on.

The six-some-odd other people and I are listening very intently as the old women rocks away, telling us vivid stories (none of which I can remember). Hours pass, but the sun stays in the same place. Without warning, the old women rocks too far forward, and falls into the vast ocean. We all quickly dive in to find her, but it is empty. The only thing I can see underwater is crystal-clearness, then I awake.