THE BEACH

Her left hand, fingernails painted a glossy red, dangled off the beach chair she was sitting in. In her right hand, she clutched a phone enveloped in a brightly bedazzled phone case. While the sun was beating down hard in Fort Lauderdale, FL, the 20-something brunette tapped away harder on her cell phone screen. Who knew what she may be Tweeting, posting, Snapchatting or filtering.

 

Her friend, sitting to her right, was engaged in much of the same behavior, but she had her phone lifted upward, capturing images of the waves coming in off the Atlantic Ocean. She tilted it downward, playfully capturing her rose-colored toes in the bottom corner of one picture. She continued to take photos—adjusting the angles just so—for a few minutes until she seemingly decided that she had the perfect shot.

 

She extended her arm over to her friend to show her.

 

“Carly, what do you think of this one?”

 

Carly paused for just a moment, staring off into the distance. She then suddenly jumped up from her chair and grabbed the beach ball that had been carefully wedged between the two friends’ belongings. She placed the ball a few yards in the distance and jovially ran back.

 

“This will add even more contrast to the colors in your photo,” Carly excitedly exclaimed. “Align it so the ball is in the bottom right corner of your frame.

 

A look of glee crossed the friend’s face. She smiled and nodded as she took the photo.

 

This time, one shot did the trick.

 

“I don’t think I even need to filter it now,” the friend said. “I can always count on my social media guru to know what looks the best.”

 

Carly giggled and went back to her phone.

 

A few minutes later, her friend thanked her for being the first like on the Instagram post. Carly had been waiting for the picture to go up, apparently with a clever comment on deck as well.

 

“Oh my god, you didn’t just comment that,” the friend managed to say through bouts of laughter.

 

Who know what the comment could have been. Was it a beach ball pun? My mind raced to figure it out and I instinctively felt a pang of self-doubt as I questioned the captions and comments that I commonly posted on social media.

 

Was I ever funny enough to make someone laugh out loud?

 

I was drawn out of my thoughts as the iPhone’s default “Marimba” ringtone cut through the humid air. Carly quickly stood up, phone pressed between her shoulder and ear as she wrapped her towel around her. She mouthed “one minute” to her friend, anticipating the call to be short.

 

Carly walked along the edge of the water, allowing the waves to lap up against her calves, as her friend watched her from a distance. The friend’s phone happened to be turned over now, and she seemed to be truly alone for the first time all afternoon.

 

Carly’s returned after just a few minutes.

 

“Sorry about that,” Carly said to her friend. “Want to go in the water? The temperature is nice.”

 

They didn’t take their phones with them into the water, instead tossing them gently into their sand-filled beach bag before adventuring into the unpredictable sea.