Crude

The night is filled with a kind of sadness and somber quiet.

Tonight as I drove by the Pensacola Beach sign "Whitest beaches in the World" flashing its bright bulbs, a small sigh came out from within me.

Even though the heat was unbearable, I drove with the windows down and the a/c  off. A dose of reality is pertinent at certain times to keep tabs on who and where we are. The smell coming off the ocean breeze burnt my nostrils as the humility overcame me. I drove straight to the beautiful white sand beaches, arriving just minutes before the first of the night-time cleanup crew buses arrived.

People of all ages and backgrounds stood around quietly, whispering if they even dared to talk. It was dark, the 3/4 moon shone brightly, reflecting off the waves of oil rushing in with the tide. This morning Pensacola Beach woke up to black beaches for the first time since the "spill". This is the first day the oil showed up in waves instead of globs on Pensacola Beach. What is happening is incomprehensible to most everyone.

Double red flags line the beach warning people not of dangerous surf, but of the murderous, toxic stickiness soaking into the sand, killing millions of lifeforms from microscopic organisms to large sea mammals.

Will the cleanup crews get sick and die a slow torturous death like so many of those who helped clean up a drunken ship captain's spilled drink in back in 1989? One thing that is certain, they will never forget this job. It will stick with them in their memories like the tar sticks to their rubber boots as they pointlessly shovel up and bag scoops of sand that formerly only contained happy memories of their childhood playground, vacations, weekends, and holidays. They shovel and throw away millions of faint memories replacing them with tears and stinging nostrils.