I'm not quite interested in the beach. It's cold, windy, and loud even in the summer (at least here in ventura). But, I live a few blocks from the water, and so I begrudgingly force myself to go.

It is foggy today and the tide is low (per usual) which means I can walk up pretty far past the rocks. Normally, I see the same assortment of ocean throw up (seaweed, seashells, driftwood, and occasionally some nicely shaped sea glass). But this afternoon, I saw a group of seagulls flying in and out of the shallow water and I was curious as to what could possibly be so interesting.

I rolled my jeans up and walked towards them. I shooed the birds until I found these two fish with their eyes scooped out. in some sections I could see where the birds began to chip past their scales and into the meat. their bodies were both caught by a fishline intertwined with a huge clump of seaweed the size of my coconut and an iron weight.

I didn't know what to do. I kind of just stood there and kept fanning the seagulls away as they circled while the waves crashed onto my ankles and soaked the tips of my jeans. I felt partially guilty? for what reason? I'm unsure. It's not like I could've done anything but I did wish I'd gotten there earlier. Not that that would change anything? I figured I should probably remove the fishline, so I dragged the dead fish all the way up to the rocks.

Here I carefully removed the hooks from their jaws and detangled the line from the ocean mass. The birds were relentless, even as I sat and worked away they circled above and beside me. When they began to caw at me, I cawed back. I like to think this is the reason why they didn't come closer.

It all felt unfair. The weight of the seaweed clump had pulled these poor fish to the shore and they probably died getting both asphyxiated and blinded by these birds.

And so, I did the most logical thing. I said fuck the birds. I grabbed each fish and I went as far as I could and then threw each one into the ocean deep before the waves began to break.

I stared as the birds began diving into the water searching.