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chest. Then, Gabriel was gone.

The Dream of Sand
     
    Griffin felt cool, wet sand beneath his feet. It was a grounding satisfying feeling. Thoughts of a long ago vacation came to mind. He looked down to confirm he was standing on a beach. To his left, he saw a small wave race back to the comfort of the sea. The day was bright, sunny, with a few clouds dotting the horizon. A constant breeze tossed his hair across his forehead. Seagulls floated effortlessly on that outgoing wind. He had to squint against the bright sun. The beach stretched on for miles. Thinking of a long walk on such a day gave Griffin a relaxed smile.
    He noticed the first odd attribute to the scene. The sand was a little too orange and the dune to his right was piled high and had a sheer face, perhaps ten feet in height. The sand was literally a wall. Tall grasses grew on top of the manicured dune wall as far as Griffin could see. Next he noticed the almost absolute silence, and that he was alone. Griffin couldn’t recall a moment of dead silence in this age of overlapping signals and eight billion people. He focused and listened. Then, he heard a slight, low pitched noise. Griffin turned his head slowly left and right, seeking to gain some hearing advantage. After a minute of concentration he was convinced the sound was more of a hum. But where was the sound coming from? Turning around, he could see hotels far off in the distance, but he could make out no other signs of life or activity. Griffin tumbled over his realization he didn’t know how he had arrived on this beach or where he had been the moment before.
    Griffin turned and began to walk south. There was a vacuum surrounding his ears, now. A pressure he couldn’t define. The wind blew his hair, the air tasted of salt, and the sun winked off the small waves far off the shore. Everything about this dream seemed normal. Dream? Dream!
    “Whoa,” Griffin said.
    He was startled to hear his voice match his intended tone, volume, and pitch. But he was positive, absolutely position, this is a dream.
    “This is crazy.”
    Griffin looked around nonchalantly. The scene was his plaything. The sky, beach, and ocean seemed out of a travel postcard. Frankly, Griffin couldn’t recall a vacation day as pleasant as what was before him. Then he noticed the figure seated atop a dune to his right. If the man were standing he would be tall. He had long dark hair, a full long beard, dark skin, and matching dark eyes. The stranger was dressed in what resembled reams of white sheets. The man was the only other person on the beach, Griffin checked. Being unable to resist the need to walk towards the figure Griffin did so. There was no caution in his steps, no fear.
    Slowly, and from the elbow, the man raised his right arm; he opened his hand, with his palm facing Griffin. He repeated this motion with his left; palm up. Even though there was nothing intimidating or striking about the encounter, Griffin became afraid. Not of the unknown man, but of the unknown. His chest felt constricted. He followed the path of the robed man's outstretched arm which came to his own feet. There was something there, in the sand. Griffin saw an object partially buried a few feet in front of him. Griffin squatted and dug into the moist sand. The object came free easily enough. It was a brass ring twelve inches in diameter with a thickness of a quarter of an inch.  Equally spaced around the ring were eight simply carved wooden characters, each an identical carving resembling an ancient Buddha.  Each Buddha was attached to the main brass ring by a small ring.
    The scene, the robed man, and the ring of Buddhas made no sense to Griffin. He looked up from the artifact and saw the man had tears on his cheeks, although his expression was somber. Without warning, the air pressure suddenly increased. Griffin winced against the pressure. It was quickly uncomfortable. Like, diving too deep under water. Then a wall of air crashed upon him. Sound wove