Winter Leviathan

Some people like to swim in the summer. But if you've ever been to the beach on a hot summer day, you see my dilemma. Crowds. I can't stand crowds. I can't stand heat, either, and that's why you'll find me all alone on the shore in the middle of January. The waves get all riled up then, frothing icy monsters that battle it out to the pure white sands. In the mornings, the sky sets up a beautiful glow up over the dark waters, the light shivering in the din. Sometimes, if it's snowing, I'll watch the flakes of white disappear into the vast ocean, swallowed in its entity.

Winter Leviathan. I know it's what they call me when they think I can't hear. They'll never call me that to my face, because they don't want to wash up dead on the shore one day. But despite the stories the locals tell, I've never actually killed anyone. All I do is stand barefoot on the beach in the winter and then occasionally jump in, clothes and all, because you can never be too cold. Maybe people have died in that ocean, but it was never directly linked to me.

Most people have the idea in their minds that I'm some sort of stupid lunatic sociopath, but really, I'm perfectly intelligent. My common sense just doesn't extend to the ocean. 

In the summer, nobody ever sees me. I'm told they wonder where I go. Home, maybe, they say. There are rumors going around that I buy a ton of ice and take ice baths all day.

But it's all fake.

On the last day of winter, I plunge headfirst into the ocean, and I don't come back up. I bask in the deep, icy depths of the sea.

The next anybody will see of me is in December.