Paradox

chapter 1

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Scratching noises echoed through the almost empty house. The scribbling came from the living room, reverberating off the walls from where Ellen Harries, concocting a new book, had been sitting for several hours. Countless slivers of crumpled papers were strewn on the floor, containing bland ideas that Ellen hadn't been satisfied with and decided to discard. She had longed to be a writer for quite some time now, but she could never quite seem to organize her mess of unfinished thoughts enough to get something decent down on paper. She sighed, half chewed pencil eraser dangling from her mouth and laid back in the red chintz arm chair that she was occupying, massaging her forehead.

Every day seemed to take the same shape: breakfast, write, throw writing in the rubbish bin, go for a walk along the shore, nibble on a late lunch, and spend the rest of the day reading or photographing the surrounding English towns. Then sometime that evening, Rupert would arrive home from work, sometimes they would eat dinner together and sometimes not, and then they would go their separate ways for the remainder of the night.

Rupert Harries was an editor at a small but well to do publishing company in the center of Dorset. He spent the majority of his time working (or goodness knows what else, Ellen often wondered), leaving his wife feeling bereaved and considerably lonely.

Ellen yawned and peered out of the bay window. Their cottage really did have a nice view, she observed briefly before watching the waves crash and ripple against the edge of the cliff in their front yard. Canford Cliffs, a suburb of Dorset in Poole, England wasn't a bad place to be alone if one had to be. And despite the cool, salty sea air, charming historical sites and people, and her quaint seaside house, Ellen rather wished she didn't have to be.

After deciding to take a break for a bit of lunch, Ellen emerged from the kitchen carrying a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich. She sat down across the room at the wooden table and bathed herself in the warm light flooding in through several surrounding windows. She glanced down at the reflection of the woman staring back at her from the teacup. She appeared older than forty-three. Her long red-brown hair was a wavy mess around her slender face. Ellen reached up and pushed her bangs back out of her eyes and watched as the woman in the teacup did the same, affirming that the woman was actually her. She noticed the bags under her grayish-blue eyes and looked away. How tired she had been lately. How much she would give for a change in pace, in her marriage, in her life.

Ellen sat at the table a while with a second cup of tea, toying with her sandwich crumbs. She felt something like sand paper graze her foot, which was resting on the nearest table leg. Looking under the table she discovered Howie, her fuzzy, creme coloured, and rather rotund cat, who was usually her only source of company. She reached down and scratched him under the chin while he purred incessantly. Ellen laughed as Howie leapt onto the table, flicking his fluffy tail under her nose happily while he munched on her crumbs.

Ellen cleaned up the remnants of her lunch and slipped on her beige, knee-length coat and a warm purple scarf. Once she had fastened the last knot on her boots, she stepped out into the crisp afternoon air. She paused for a moment to listen to the waves beat against the side of the cliff and calmed some fly-away hairs that had whipped in her face, Autumn had just begun and temperatures were dropping to pleasantly chilly numbers. The air smelt of ocean, sunshine, and fresh grass. Ellen walked leisurely through the wonderfully green tufts until she reached the edge of the cliff's overhang at the tip of the yard. She sat down on a rock and hugged her knees to her chest, closing her eyes and lying her head on her knee caps. As the salty breeze and cool of the sea beckoned from the front, warm, soothing light washed over her from behind and a feeling of unusual peace made her smile and willed her to be nostalgic.