In a tiny nutty shell

We drove along the coastline, tracing California’s plummeting cliff line. The lighthouse shadowed us in the breezy shanty house. The sea blew through the house and mist splashed the air with salt. Sticky in the morning. Sticky at dusk. My arms squelched, skin pealing off of skin, when I wiped crusty wisps of hair from the corner of my mouth. Seagulls flocked below the tower’s guiding light, too high for even their timid wings. But I climbed the steep cinderblock stairs to the sailor’s lookout. The tiny peninsula jutted out all alone and fog wrapped around to conceal my bedroom.