acrylic daydream

I close my eyes and imagine what the scene around me must look like from the big windows up at the house. A girl standing ankle deep in the black water, the waterline on her long green skirt steadily getting higher and higher as the tide comes in. The wind, carrying the sea air and smells of rotting fish whips her dark hair around her. A small, fluffy, sandy colored puppy runs in circles with its tongue lolling out, chasing a terrified sand crab away from the girl’s bare, exposed feet.
I can almost feel a paint brush between my fingers and a canvas before me, as I mentally turn the entire landscape around me into a giant work of art. My mind’s eye zeros in on little details: the pattern in my skirt, the strange texture of the sand crab, smooth and hard. I can even see the black clouds rolling in over the horizon.
The sharp sound of thunder wakes me from my acrylic daydream, and my eyes snap open. I turn, only to see Pennie sitting beside me, looking out at the horizon. I smile to myself, wondering what she could be dreaming of, sitting there with her ears flopping around her cute, furry face.
Intrigued by a sudden inspiration, I pick up my sandles and Pennie’s leash and head down the beach toward the dock. As we reach the old wooden steps, I scoop up Pennie and jump across the pile of dead fish in front of the first wooden plank. Up on the deck, I set the slightly protesting puppy back down again and move toward the far edge of the dock.
Staring down into the waves, I imagine what it must be like down there, a whole city of brightly colored fish right down to the sandy bottom. A little farther on , mountains of coral, each home to some underwater specimen.
Suddenly, taking even myself by surprise, I drop Pennie’s leash and dive into the watery depths below me. I feel like some mythical, underwater creature,
with my skirt bobbing up and down like tentacles on a jelly fish, and my skin a ghostly green. I glide through the water, as easily and effortlessly as any of its inhabitants. With a strange sense of weightlessness, my head breaks the surface
and I make my way back to shore where Pennie is lying in the sand, tail drifting lazily from side to side.