I arrived at Coney Island with the reckless confidence of someone who believed the beach was a concept, not a logistics problem. No chair, no blanket, just me, raw optimism, and the sun. Within minutes, I realized the error. The sand is not forgiving.

So I marched up to Cropsey Avenue to the nearest drug store, where the universe offered me a single beach chair. Not just a chair, the last chair. Scarcity imbued it with value. Armrests, cupholder, and all. In that small aisle, it felt less like a purchase and more like destiny.

Back on the beach, I set myself up as if I had finally cracked the equation of seaside existence: One chair + One Diet Coke + SPF 30 = Enlightenment.

Around me, the city manifested its chaos, the waves thrashing against screaming children, the ocean stretching out as a flat blue abstraction, the sky indifferent. And me, finally poised to merge with it all.

Then, in a single motion, I leaned back into the chair. And the chair, with mechanical indifference, leaned forward into me. It collapsed around my body like a badly designed exoskeleton, armrests pinning my chest, fabric yanking my head down. Suddenly, I was not a man on a beach. I was an organism consumed by aluminum tubing.

"What. The. Hell."

I writhed. Left, right. A sunburnt turtle auditioning for Greek tragedy. My Diet Coke toppled into the seat, soaking the fabric and pouring out, until it appeared, at a distance, that I was oozing some internal failure. So there I was: staggering along the Coney Island sand, leaking brown liquid, locked inside a hostile object of my own choosing.

A man, Russian by accent, approached with the calm authority of someone who had seen Coney claim stranger victims.

"You need help?" he asked.

And there, still imprisoned by chair and soda, I insisted:

"I am good. It is just Diet Coke. It is just Diet Coke, man."