An ogre gets pushed onto a beach by an unseen force. Suddenly alone, he realizes he is nowhere, with only the sea, the sky, and the sand around him. Settling down into this austere environment, he encounters a mermaid over time, in stages, who mysteriously appears and disappears in the water, and by whom he increasingly becomes intrigued. At long last, smitten by her and deciding to seek her out intentionally, he wades out into deep and turbulent waters, risking the security and boredom of the beach to find her. He does so, but the water is dangerous, and a tidal wave appears behind her. He lets go of her at the last moment in order to to avoid what he fears will be drowning, before being swept away.
Waking up on the beach the next day, he realizes what has happened and runs back into the ocean to find her, but where there was depth before, now there is only the shallows, and he eventually hears the sound of a drain being pulled. Looking down in surprise, he sees the water level go down, revealing a wooden floor. The sky and the clouds are lifted by stagehands behind him, as props are walked offstage, including an uninhabited mermaid's costume. Staring in disbelief at the dismantling of what he had been his reality, he sees a stagehand carrying, and then dropping, an hourglass, which crashes to the stage, spilling its beach sand. Wistful, he reaches down to touch it, but upon doing so, turns to sand himself. A stagehand comes to sweep the stage, walks off camera, clicks the light off, and slams the door.
We are actors in our life's play, and if we do not use our stage time well, it is gone before we realize what has happened. All is lost to he who hesitates.
