The afternoon was getting unbearably hot and dreary, and so my sister and I ended up at Seal Beach. The sun was already a low-slung chariot of flames in the sky, and the throngs of beach-goers, mourning the loss of hot, tan-inducing sunbeams, hurried to get back to their cars before the free parking expired.

I took a walk along the shore, sometimes straying into the edges of the tide and sometimes leaving prints on the just-damp sand. A little brown boy in a Beatles t-shirt threw himself into the surf, his sister running in after him. An Asian boy in a Hawaiian shirt chased the tide out to the sea and then let it chase him back to his parents. In the sand behind them, two black boys were flying brilliant blue kites.

Sometimes I wonder what race is: and sometimes I think that there are only children.

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