Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner…by
ImagineerComment by K3Master: She collapsed upon the sodden sand, tears streaming from her eyes, sobs breaking from her throat, her body going limp, giving up, and sorrow owned her.
She had left the house, running for her life, for her sanity, and had not given thought to where she was going. She ran blindly, wildly, and had somehow ended up here, on this lonely stretch of sand so far from where she had started.
Her sobs continued, as she hung her head and lamented her life, when suddenly she noticed a movement from the corner of her eye, and quickly looked up, suddenly ashamed to be caught there like this by some stranger, and then gasped.
For there, rising out of the water, came the figure of an elderly man. She blinked tears away and swiped at her eyes, believing herself to be having some kind of hallucination, but no. He remained, and now he was standing
on the water, and was walking her way.
She remained there on her knees, and gaped at this insanity. How? How was there an old man coming towards her after... he did not just rise from the water did he!? That was impossible! Yet he had, she knew he had. She didn't know why, but she knew that it hadn't been some hallucination of a crazy crying woman, it was
real.
So she kneeled, and watched him come strolling towards her, leaning on some kind of walking stick, and a great big smile plastered on her face, and he came, and as he did it seemed that her cares and her worries and her fears were simply swept away. His smile became infectious, and she returned it in kind. As he reached her, his eyes shining with an unnatural kindness and empathy, he lowered his hand, and cupped her chin and lifted her face so that she looked right into his eyes with her own.
Then, he nodded his head, and blinked, and laughed a small twinkling laugh that seemed to drift away on the breeze and then he was gone. Just like that, without a sound or any measure of his passing he was gone. Yet left behind, a feeling that penetrated her very soul, and left her feeling happier and more joyous and calm than she had ever felt in her life.
And so she stood and walked off into the day, whistling a little tune and basking in the wonder of the miracle on the beach.