After the sun passed below the horizon, it would begin…

[Prompt]

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After the sun passed below the horizon, it would begin.

The sea would swell, and the air would be filled with an almost inaudible hum that rose and fell with the water. Then the droplets would appear to unite into white horses, and the sound would increase to a murmur.

The air would smell of coffee and lavender and tangerines, and tiny beings would hop, skip, and jump from the surface of the sea, onto the sand.

They would frolic around, playing leapfrog and summersaulting all along the tideline. Their laughter would ring like bells. When they were tired out, they would get to building a gigantic sandcastle that looked like a cross between the Tower of Babylon and the Coliseum of Rome.

People would watch from the windows of the ruins of the buildings overlooking the seafront.

It was a mesmerising time – a Son et Lumiere show that surpassed anything that the Special Effects crews of Hollywood could come up with.

Of course, it was against the law to believe in fairies, because life was grounded in reality, and this fantasy was only the beginning of madness… and there was no more money for mental institutions, since the infrastructure was so much in need of repair.

On the other hand, it was against religion to believe that angels could manifest themselves as having fun, because they only appeared to impart dire predictions about alien invasions and wars and plagues, these days.

It was inevitable that those who still had cameras and telephones tried to take photographs of these beings – but so far, no one had ever succeeded in capturing anything – not even a streak of lilac or orange light, or the scintillating glitter in the air.

After about an hour, the movements would slow down, and then lights would fade, and the beings would disappear into nothingness, without returning back to the sea.

In then morning, all that would be left would be a gigantic heap of sand, not even remotely resembling an edifice.