Totes and Floats

The blue light vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

It was obvious to Exer that they were in a different room because, even though most of it was identical to before, the concrete walls were a slightly different shade of grey. And, despite their usual inability to read body language, it was obvious to Exer that Lena was confused. She glanced around the room in a daze, clearly not spotting the differing shade of grey.

Before Exer could fully consider clarifying the situation to her, Zan zoomed out of the room with Lena in tow.

Lena’s confusion turned to surprise, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. The rest of the building was much less subtle in its differences, the normal walls replaced by a massive glass dome. Not to mention, there was not a single purple monstrosity in sight.

Exer lagged behind the other two as they charged ahead in great excitement. Their reactions were understandable to Exer, if not shared. The dome itself was atop a small hill and gave a perfect overview of the beach, which stretched out further than the eye could see and met the sea to create a perfectly idyllic landscape. Unlike the city, there were only a few plants, and no trams flying about the place. It was just the sun, the sand and the water, and it was beautiful.

But Exer was impartial to the sun, found sand annoying (it gets everywhere) and had an unnatural disdain for large bodies of water. They just couldn’t get themselves to share in the excitement no matter how hard they tried, and they weren’t exactly trying very hard.

The girls came to a stop just outside the dome, and Exer was relieved that it wasn’t too busy, or they’d be creating a decent amount of foot traffic with their lingering.

“It’s awesome, right?” Zan asked rhetorically, gently nudging Lena’s shoulder.

Lena, apparently not realising it was a rhetorical question, and she didn’t have to give an answer, replied, “Awesome doesn’t do it justice.”

They spurred into movement again and wove their way down the side of the hill, following the meandering path right to the edge of the sand. Lena immediately slipped her sandals off and stepped onto the beach, letting her toes curl up into the warm sand. Zan did the same.

Exer, sensing the girls were about to run off and do their own thing again, took a slight detour before following them onto the sand. Just to the side of the pathway was a collection of silver rods about the size of an average adults forearm, and Exer grabbed one before trudging through the sand to follow the others.

The beautiful weather meant the shores were busy, but the beach was expansive enough to not cause any crowding issues. Exer was quietly grateful to Zan, as she took the lead and led them to a very quiet spot close to the water.

Exer dropped the metal rod straight into the sand. It buried its roots into the ground and rapidly expanded upwards, sprouting a large parasol big enough to shield all three of them from the sun. Exer whacked the side of it, and it birthed another metal rod that unfolded itself into a beach chair. They whacked it two more times out of politeness, so each of the three of them would have their own chair.

Taking the middlemost seat, Exer pulled their feet up onto the chair and instantly felt less miserable now they were no longer in contact with the sand. Lena and Zan did not do the same.

Zan instead pulled off her oversized shirt to reveal her beige bikini, which contrasted against her dark skin and matched her shimmery golden hair. With a little less enthusiasm, Lena followed suit and slipped out of her sundress to reveal her swimsuit. It was a black one piece with shorts and short sleeves, and a high neckline – it was similar to what a surfer might wear, though Exer assumed she didn’t know that.

Lena hunched her shoulders forward in a clear sign of self-consciousness, which puzzled Exer. Though they weren’t one to experience attraction towards people, they could certainly understand that aesthetically, both Zan and Lena were nice to look at. But, like most of their thoughts, they kept that to themselves. They spared a quick glance to their own pastel hoodie and resolved to never take it off.

Zan chucked her shirt onto one of the chairs, then rummaged around her tote bag to pull out her uninflated inflatable floaties. Each of them received a quick button press, then were thrown onto the sandy floor where they instantly blew up to full size. Lena stayed motionless and blank faced the entire time, as though her brain was playing catch up.

“Let’s go in the water!” Zan exclaimed, scooping up the discard items from the floor.

Exer wondered why she’d thrown it all to the side if she was just going to pick it all back up again. They also wondered, looking at Lena’s pale skin, if she was going to be cooked alive by the sun.

“Are you wearing sunscreen?” Exer asked.

Lena cocked her head; her signature move for showing her ignorance. “What’s that?”

Zan rifled in her bag to pull out a spray bottle of the stuff.

“It stops your skin from burning up in the sun.” She explained.

Lena’s eyes widened at this revelation. She looked down at her exposed, pale and freckled arms.

“Can I, uh, borrow some?” She asked shyly, hoping she’d never have to be a victim of sunburn again.

“Go for it.” Zan made a motion to throw the bottle at Lena, but stopped at the last moment and proceeded to hand it over normally. Exer deemed this a wise choice.

Once Lena had finished putting the sunscreen on, Zan trapped her inside the big donut shaped and patterned floaty.

“Are you sure you don’t want to join us Exer?” Zan asked, waving an inflatable tube in their direction and silently threatening to trap them in a floaty too.

Exer shook their head. “No, thank you. I’ll stay here, dry and far away from the water.”

There was a reason they hadn’t learnt to swim. Putting it simply, they didn’t believe technology and water mixed well, no matter how much waterproofing was done. They also thought drowning sounded like a horrible way to die.

“Okay…” Zan gave a small smile and turned back to Lena, “Well, shall we?”

Lena nodded and followed her down to the water, waddling awkwardly as she did so due to the donut.

Despite the sun bearing down on them, Exer could tell the water was chilly, because of how fiercely Lena recoiled when she dipped her first toe into it. They kept watching the girls wade further into the water, though were too far away too here their chatter.

When they were sure certain Lena wasn’t going to spontaneously drown, Exer tapped their bracelet against the parasol pole and a holographic menu appeared in front of them. They scrolled through the various cold drink before settling on a chocolate sundae.

After a few minutes, a little service bot hovered up to them with a tray attached to their tube arms.

“Your drink.” The robotic voice said in a way Exer found inexplicably cute.

They grabbed their drink, and patted the top of the robot a few times.

“Thank you.”

“Have a nice day!” The little fella whizzed off.

“You too.” Exer responded then grew embarrassed at their own words. That was clearly a robot without sentience, so how could they have a ‘nice day’ when they couldn’t feel ‘nice’?

They aggressively sipped at their sundae and distracted themselves by observing Lena flailing around in the water. Ironically, Lena’s movements looked akin to a fish out of water. Zan tried her best to assist Lena’s flailing, but to no avail. Their voices started to raise in volume, just enough so Exer could pick out a few words, like: ‘oh god’ and ‘drown’.

It was only then that Exer truly started to appreciate the joy of going to the beach with friends, and a smile crept its way onto their face. Unfortunately, it was gone again by the time the girls emerged from the water looking defeated. Lena in particular looked like a sad and soggy puppy.

“It’s alright, Lena.” Zan said and patted her on the back. “We can have another go at it later.”

Lena shook her head, and her wet hair flopped about, once again evoking the image of a drenched dog. “I, uh… I’m okay with staying out of the water for the time being.”

Exer nodded in solidarity.

“Ok! Do you want some food, or something to drink?” Zan continued onwards, seeming unbothered.

Lena looked around the beach. “Sure?”

Exer brought up the menu for them while Zan dried herself off with her towel, and threw a spare one towards Lena so she could do the same. But Lena just stood still and watched Exer with awe, letting the towel fall to the sand in front of her.

“We can eat here?” She asked.

“Sure we can!” Zan grinned.

“Neat.”

Zan went through and ordered a slightly excessive amount of food for the three of them. It proved to be a grave mistake as it took them the rest of the afternoon to get through it all. Exer left the beach feeling as bloated as a whale, yet slightly more agile.