Reflection

A Story by Alan B.

The great sullen waters laid before me dark and churning on that nudiustertian dusk. Beyond the shallows the water turns a dark blue, denoting the true depths. The sand is stark white, flat and hard. Many thousands of sea shells crunch under my shoes as I walk down the beach, and a small bibble jumps inside under my foot; a tiny, bothersome passenger. A light breeze blows, pushing the big fat clouds hesitantly to the east. Their shapes and curves are sensuous in the dying light, awakening a certain agastopia. I take in the whole scene; the smell of the air, the gulls and pelicans flying overhead, the calm filling me, and the murmur of the waves spilling like silken sheets onto the shore, and store it deep in my memory; for it will be the last time I will stand on the shores of my home. A self-imposed exile is the gabelle that I have levied. Far distant lands await me and my destiny is changed. Only the smell of ocean lingers now as I sit looking out on a foreign dusk that holds a beauty, but it is cold and alien-as you might feel if you beheld a distant galaxy with perhaps tiny planets and life atomically different from what we know. Darkness covers me and I retreat into fantasies a tortured mind makes alone.