Beaches, to my mind, were covered in the fine yellow sand of childhood.
The sand I'd made castles in.
The sand I'd kicked up when I ran from the tide.
The sand I'd buried my father in while he'd slept and laughed so hard I fell into its soft embrace and didn't care that the grains would be in my hair even after a week of hot baths.
Brighton had no sand that I could see; only stones.
They were grey.
They were white.
They were brown and black and cold and round.
They were pebbles and rocks which sank and retreated beneath my feet and then toppled across the tops of my shoes, trying to consume me, to drag me down and to keep me far from the water. I walked, I waded, I wished that I had worn shoes more suited to the task and I watched the tide roll back and crash in ahead, looming dark and tall, climbing to meet the horizon and bleeding into the gloomy sky.
There were stars above Brighton on that night. Stars and a moon which embroidered the crest of each new wave with fine silver thread, weaving the water into endless reams of shimmering black silk.
I picked up my feet – raised them high above the stones with each step – my energy renewed as the folds of water and sky beckoned me ever closer. Moulded by the tide, the beach rose and dipped, a mountainous crossing for to traverse in the dark, but one which I conquered knowing the sight I would behold at the other side of those peaks.
Arrived at last, I dropped to sit gracelessly on those browns and blacks and whites and greys, caring not if they were cold or round, pebble or rock, only that they cradled me in a moment of wonderment as I wished away all my cares – wished them upon the tide and begged it silently to carry them to distant shores where they could do me no more harm.
How curious I must have looked, I think now that I am removed from that day.
How curious a person to be sat so alone on so dark a night at so late an hour.
How curious to be on the beach wishing impossible things upon the tide.
How curious, indeed, to have caught his eye.
'Hello.'
The voice was in the wind.
The voice was in the water breaking against the shore.
'Hello.'
The voice was in the moonlight glimmer rolling upon the sea.
The voice was in my head calling me back to a reality I wished far away.
'Hello.'
The voice belonged to a man who had sat beside me like an old friend who'd known me all my life.
Despite myself, I turned to him and replied a simple, 'Hello.'
YOU ARE READING
The Hour With You
Storie breviI stepped from the train with no journey in mind, only a desire to be far from what was behind me. There on that night he said to me a word with such promise, such hope, and such kindness that no two syllables ought to be able to contain it. 'Hello...
