Beaches of Lisboa

By Rei Rosenquist

Summer 2079. Paradise, alive in Portugal. An ad claims the beaches are back. What could jumpstart a recent high school graduate's photography career like an opportunity like that?
Ry travels to Lisboa for the truth. The fancy hotel, the crowded streets, the promise of adventure and success.
Ry finds a bar in the basement of a random building in an unfamiliar part of the city. Time to get to know the locals.
Will things go sideways or will it all pan out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rei Rosenquist
• Release date: Aug 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201416560

Rei Rosenquist

Rei Rosenquist first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a nomadic story-teller’s life. Over the years, they have traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. But, some things never change. For them, these are stories, food service, and traveling. These three passions have bloomed from hobbies, studies, and jobs into a way of life. These days, Rei can be found in between Tokyo, Kailua, and Bellingham, Washington pouring beautiful latte art, baking off a batch of famous savory scones, and cozying up with a laptop to obsessively write mountains of dark speculative fiction. You can find Rei’s stories and blog at reirosenquist.com. You can also reach them via email at [e-mail] or connect via Facebook (Rei Rosenquist), Twitter (rylrosenquist) and Instagram (rylrosenquist).

Book preview

EPILOGUE

They tried to reconstruct the beaches when the city was finally forced to acknowledge that the ocean was swallowing it up. The city commissioned seventeen tons of rock be ground into course sand and dumped along the coastline.

They made some immediate progress, enough to advertise the return of coastal resorts for a single season. Truth be told, seventeen tons of rock barely touched it. It was pleasant for half that. The second half of the season, the beaches weren't beaches but cliffs of concrete. The resorts still toted their seafront views but people stopped going outside of the entertainment lounges. Smoke and chatter clogged the indoors while the hungry trash-clogged sea swallowed the edges of the city, one more time. Waves lapped up and stole away the borrowed stones, returning them in theory, to the disparate places from which they'd been hauled.

The rest of the city suffered a strange decay. The smaller streets, alleys, and minor thoroughfares flooded more with each year. Soon, even in low tide, one couldn’t walk St. Martin’s Boulevard without wet shoes. First floors of buildings had to be boarded up, stairs abandoned. Entire families had to be relocated. Companies had to establish new offices. Lives were swallowed whole by the slow encroachment of water.

The tourists loved it all, paid top dollar to come and see the mall’s lower level flood and freeze over in the winter. Shelves stuck solid seen from several feet above. Soaked maps and -- Shop owners had to become photographers of these scenes. Had to snap fast photos of lovely red-nosed foreign faces gawking at the subtle and elegant destruction of their livelihoods.

The smart ones shot from the hip. Took pictures while knitting hats, mittens, scarves. The smarter ones sewed on patches of the city crest, mall logos, tourists’ first names. The desperate formed mobs, gangs. They robbed, stole, and beat the tourists' faces in. Who could blame them?

Their city had become an attraction. A sight to be seen. If you were anybody, you had to be there. The best of all fairs. A drunken party. The final Carnival.

And while the tourists partied, the floods kept coming. The ruined buildings kept crumbling. The city and its people, laid to waste.

The end of summer was more than