Vera loved the beach. She often slipped away unnoticed from her friends to a secret rendezvous with the sand. She etched out hearts on the malleable surface of homeless pinpoints irretrievably separated from the where of their birth and the what of their existence. As she placed her hand in the heart she sensed the nearby warmth of the summer sea, a confirmation of the sand's love for her. It had been some seasons now, and the initial pain had seeped away. Only the love remained, and that was as everlasting as a human being could will it to be. She thought of him over and over, thoughts cycling in serene concordance with the tide caressing the shore. He had died so young. And this was the place they scattered his ashes.
Story #224
7 comments:
Secret randevous with the sand...The best of all possible kinds, and ones that can make the least amount of trouble!
As we walked down to the beach she was trying to tell me how big the man had been. Nancy has been taking karate courses and was bubbling over in confidence. Last week she had been walking along the beach enjoying the sound of the surf and the early morning sun. During the week the beaches this late in the fall season are deserted. She had been daydreaming she explained. Walking and enjoying the breeze from the sea. She hadn’t noticed the shadow looming behind her. If she had been paying attention there would have been no doubt about the bulk of a man that was creeping up behind her. Before she knew it there was a huge hand groping to cover her mouth. It tasted and smelled of burlap. The calluses scraped against her cheek she explained. Just like in her training, she jumped into action and sent a roundhouse kick right into his thorax knocking him down on his butt. As she explained with a grin she knelt into the sand and drew the size of the butt impression that he had left when she had knocked him on his ass…
Beautiful story, Indie!
And all that remained was the moat from their castle made of sand.
That was a really touching one. The ocean waves rolling in and out gives me an imagery of emotional healing. I wish the pain of loss could easily be washed away.
Michael: You lightened it up a bit. That's a good-sized hind end she's drawing!
Barbara: Must be nice to live in a state with a beach.
Michael: I always wonder what other people think when they see these photos. Oh, and I'll be around your site on Friday.
Mushroom: I think this story is more like one out of the first hundred, before they started getting longer. I always felt the best ones were the ones that stood on just a few sentences. The more I had to explain, the less it worked, I felt.
Jamie: Thank you. I feel that Retarius would have liked this one, too. I wonder if he sneaks in here and reads these.
Jessie: Makes me happy that you smiled. Hope it get your day off to a good start, or what's more likely, gave you nice thoughts to sleep on.
Indie: "Brevity is the art of your wit." -- R.A.T.
That comes from two principles that apply to me:
1) I am incredibly lazy and will do anything to avoid writing something long, even if it means writing something short.
2) Quality is inversely related number of words. That means the longer it gets, the more it sucks.
When I wrote my master's thesis everybody else had 100 pages. I had 50.
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