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The Endless Beach

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  We all assembled on the beach, the boy gravely donned and inflated the garment, and amidst roars of laughter from his brothers, entered the water. The chill and the vapor taken together told a poor tale of the island. The dusk had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where, as I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring fire. Not a single detail was visible.  He struggles, usually alone, with various goals, such as determining for which side of the iron curtain the village functions, if either; remaining defiant to its imposed authority; concocting his own plans for escape; learning all he can about the village; and subverting its operation. Under these dark waters there stretched the bank of shellfish, an inexhaustible field of pearls more than twenty miles long.  So intensely still was it, and so perfectly transparent was the surface of the deep, that had it not