Once a year the waters recede to their lowest point, falling enough to touch the coral bed that usually lay far beneath lengths of water.

Locals call it unfortunate, the coral often comes near to dying by the animals that take the chance to feed off of them. Out-of-towners come from far and wide to see it happen, as nowhere else is there such a clean decline from the beach to the coral bed, enough so they often used to walk from atop it to the bottom, carving names into the coral at the bottom.

One of the reasons it is blocked and only admired from a distance.

Worshipers and godly people believe it to be a celestial event brought to by the gods, written in their scripture that there was a day the oceans entirely disappeared leaving man to search for it among the dry plains. A hard told story, but one that still brings people up to pray.

As it is the small window of time where the skies clear if other earthly bodies, a time of renewal, a time to pray for a families birth, a new relationship. Or the next coming year.

The rising event happens elsewhere, in a towns that line to opposite coast, their tales of the tide rising as two celestial bodies align in the sky briefly, merely hearsay in such a far off town.

But when there was no guards or railing to stop people from going down to the bed, there would be rare exchanges that happened between those lucky or gifted enough to stumble upon them.

A mer’s stash, a mer’s blessing. And the only heard time of a mer’s kiss.

The ocean climbs its way back to the beach within the days, obscuring the bed, leaving nothing but the imagination to think of there truly are such wonderful things that could arise from the event.

Praying for a loved one from the falling of a waterline.

Wandering down to carve into the coral as a show between young love.

Finding something shimmering in the night, breathing as water washes over it, and stealing a kiss from something so beautiful.