The no-parking signs no longer stood sentinel against cars. With the incoming tide and the rising of the water level up to a good three feet in the former parking lot, they had become anchor points for people to tie their canoes up against. It was one of the benefits of living in a former city, everybody agreed--the sheer prevalence of signs for ( Read more... )

The waves were choppy that morning as she pushed the boat off from the pier and settled down to row to the altar center, or what they thought was the altar center. Eventually, the buoy from the last successful sacrifice always disintegrated or floated away or fell apart, but that was part of the way it worked. Nobody would put extra buoys out ( Read more... )

When the bay turned crystal-clear and inviting, and the sun shone bright, and the colors of all the buildings along the shore-front seemed to dance with color and brilliance, that was the time when all the old fishermen would suck their teeth and refuse to go out to fish. It was also the time when the tourists exited their hotels in droves and ( Read more... )

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She sank down into the blue-green waters and thought, "This is worth it. Being able to live here, being able to do this whenever I want, it is worth all the inconvenience and the trouble and the stress of the job." She hadn't swum this particular coral reef before, but it was far off from the major visiting areas and so she had some hope that it ( Read more... )

When you surf the waves at Remotown, you carry a speargun, and you're part daredevil, part hero. The hero part comes with the chance that you'll be attacked by a voidfish and kill it. The damn things have destroyed all our attempts to set up a protected nursery for smaller, gentler fish. They'll even flop across the land for up to a quarter-mile, ( Read more... )

We feared brain parasites in lake-water, but nothing really in sea water. We laughed at the tourists who wouldn't go in the water for fear of shark attacks, which were so rare as to be less risky than driving to the beach. We didn't think much of the jellyfish that washed up on the beach, simply tried to avoid stepping on them. When the glowing ( Read more... )

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The boats came from all over the world to visit the last great land-city. Parents took their children, either because they thought it was important for the children to understand what had been lost, or because they thought it was like Disneyworld, a novel experience that every child should enjoy while they were still young enough. Walking on land, ( Read more... )