It's turning again.

Hmm?

The tide. It's turning.

Oh. Of course it's turning. It's always turning.

Earlier than yesterday.

It's always earlier than yesterday, too.

You don't know that.

Yes I do. I'm going back to sleep.

No you don't. How could you know that? You haven't seen every tide.

Those I haven't, you've told me about.

Well, I haven't seen them all either.

...

I just thought you'd want to know.

Thanks for sharing. I also want to sleep. Go away.

Sleep? How can you sleep at a time like this?

Mid-afternoon? Completely without issue.

But there's so much to see! Like, for instance, take that sand over there!

Sand? It's sand. You are winding me up on purpose.

Am not! Sand is cool! See how it's layered?

Layered?

Yeah! The sand higher up the slope is dry, while the area closer to the water is wet.

It's always like that. The wet bit has more worms in it. What's your point?

The proportion of dry to wet sand changes! Isn't that cool? Look closely, you can see the water running down the wet bit. It cuts little wavy channels, like tiny rivers. The water in the sand is higher than sea level, so it's doing what water always does and flowing down towards it. Then when the tide comes back in, the cycle starts again!

Riveting.

It's hard to get worms by the water, for the waves. And the sand is so wet it's hard to stand on. But the dry bit doesn't have any worms at all. How far up should we go to get the most worms the most easily, then?

I dunno. The middle?

Is there some part which has juicier worms? What about other beaches? I don't know either! Isn't it wonderful?

How is sand wonderful?

How isn't it?

It's mundane.

So? What do you think about all day, then? You like sleeping so much, what do you dream about?

Flying, usually.

Well of course you dream about flying. We all dream about flying. Isn't there anything else?

I dunno. Worms I guess? Going back to sleep?

You dream about sleeping while you're asleep? There's an irony in there somewhere, I'm sure of it.

Sleep's important. Speaking of, don't let me keep you from your statistical analysis of the distribution of worms in sand. It sounds like you've got a lot of work to do.

Suit yourself. I won't share my results.

I cannot fathom how I shall cope. Goodnight.