Campaign Challenge Three: Show, don't Tell

As promised, I am posting my response to Campaign Challenge #3 today. For those of you who aren't familiar with Rach's latest challenge, here's how it works (pulled directly from Rach's post, here):

Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

• that it’s morning, 

• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach

• that the MC (main character) is bored

• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting

• that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: "synbatec," "wastopaneer," and "tacise."   (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).

This scene is exactly 300 words and I managed to squeeze in the nonsense words too! So, without further ado, here it is:

Mara collapsed onto the fine white sand with a heavy sigh. It had already soaked up some of the morning sun’s warmth; it slowly soaked through the material of her suit coat and blouse and into the muscles of her back.

This is as nice a place to wait as any, she thought.

She sighed again, kicking off her shoes and digging her toes into the sand. She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of the sun on her forehead, the rush and crash of the waves in her ears, the salty tang of ocean air on her tongue…the trickle of sand sliding down her collar. She screwed up her face.

“I guess even perfection has its drawbacks,” she said to herself, imagining the sand that must have already worked its way into her long blond curls.

How long would it be until the board called for her? She’d seen their schedules and they weren’t nearly as busy as the company bigwigs pretended. All this waiting was just a ploy to unnerve her, put her on edge. She smiled to herself; if they’d actually read her reports, they might have realized such tactics weren’t likely to work on her. Not when she had someplace like this stretch of deserted beach to retreat to.

A gentle breeze tickled her nose, bringing an acrid scent to her nostrils from somewhere behind her. It smelled of machine oil and industrial sealant. Mara sat up in a fury.

“Tacise, get in here!” she shouted. “I’m supposed to meet with SynbaTec any minute now and I can still smell the machinery! Get Wastopaneer in here and get it fixed!”

She pulled a remote control from her pocket and clicked a button. The beach, the sun, even the sand in her shirt and hair vanished.