Unaware she was squinting all the time to both avoid salt spray and to cut the dazzling sunlight reflecting off the waves, Asta continued to scan the waves for suitcases.  They were getting further and further apart and harder to find as they either sank or floated just below the surface, too logy to rise above the waves.  Fortunately the bottom where she was working was largely an aquatic desert, just pure clean sand and only minimal growth.  If it had been a richer ecosystem she'd have likely shredded her feet on corals or, worse, the spines of urchins as she was utterly unaware of the potential dangers of the ocean bottom.  Once a bit of spiky slimy seaweed wrapped around her ankle, eliciting a scream that was lost in the roaring surf and accompanied by a frantic bit of dancing until she unwrapped it and discovered it was just a plant.  Still she flung it far out so it wouldn't come back and bother her again.<br/><br/>Where were the bodies?<br/><br/>Like many mindless tasks, Asta devoted only a small portion of her brain to gathering the suitcases and it left a lot of her thoughts to go in other directions.  They were present, blown or sucked out of the plane, but where were the bodies?  Were the still strapped in the plane like she had been and dragged to the bottom of the ocean when it crashed and sank?  Or had they died on impact, maybe thrown out of the plane, and sank?  Asta knew that sometimes dead animals floated and sometimes they sank in the boggy thaw lakes, and sometimes they sank then ballooned up with the gases of decay and then floated.  So far though she hadn't seen a single trace of a body, just suitcases and the occasional floating seat bottom cushion which she also flung towards the shore.  Maybe they could make Alejandro a little bed out of them to rest on until he was better?<br/><br/>She also thought about how she felt, and how she should feel.  No one she knew had been on the plane so it wasn't as if she'd lost family or friends and even though she felt bad for the people who had died it wasn't quite real to her emotions yet.  She was lost, not where she was supposed to be, and that was much more worrying.  Looking back towards the shore Asta knew exactly where she was in relation to it, and where she'd been.  Even if she went into the trees she was confident she would know where she was.  But looking the other way, out across the flat crazy endless ocean, she worried.  How did you know where you were on that?  And how did other people know?  Your feet couldn't remind your soul where it belonged and take you back there.<br/><br/>And the others, did any of them lose a friend or a family member?  That would be very sad making.  Worse, what if one of them died after surviving, like Alejandro?  He was so gentle, so thoughtful and generous that the thought of him dying did make the young girl sad.  Asta hoped and conveyed that hope in a prayer to the wind and to the sand that he would be okay and was just a little banged up.<br/><br/>She was reaching for a purple backpack with a soaked, once fluffy plush bear attached to it by a plastic clasp, when Giulia's shrill cry pierced the rushing wind and pounding waves. Shading her eyes with her hand, Asta peered and saw the pretty woman waving at her, no waving something at her and motioning like Asta needed to come over.  Left hand raised in a wave to acknowledge Giulia, Asta's right hand grabbed the straps of the backpack and pulled it across the top of the water as she walked, letting the ocean bear the weight for as long as possible.<br/><br/>There was a new person, she saw, as she neared the foam flecked crescent where the water kissed the sand and then sank into it like  lover.  Squinting harder, she tried to make him out but her sun dazzled eyes left flashes that Asta realized were no longer coming from reflections but from her overworked eyes.  It was exactly like being out on the snow on a sunny day for too long, snow blindness, and Asta knew a headache might follow if she wasn't careful.  She also knew that she'd have a hard time seeing for an hour or so now that her eyes and brain realized they were out of sync.<br/><br/>"Giulia?" she asked loudly, purple backpack sliding across the sand now, still held by Asta's hands.