The Walk

© Bryan Beal

The sand was hot under Reena's feet as she walked with her feet periodically washed by the incoming waves of the Pacific Ocean rolling up the beach. She let herself be lulled by the cooling touch of the salty liquid on her skin. The course massages of the grains under her feet delighted her and recalled times past, times lost in the mist of her own forgetfulness. She struggled to make out faces and sounds, more frustrated with the wasted effort to drag the details from the shadowed recesses of what she thought was there. No faces came forward. No voices called out to her.

Reena's eyes scanned the dunes and the trail of footprints that vanished into the distance behind her. Beyond a few metres, she made out nothing by vague shades and splotches of colour that meant nothing to her. She wanted to turn around and go back to those hues and discover what lay within, but she could not. There was something ahead of her drawing her on, step by trudging step. What was out there, in the dim light of hope that was arrayed before her, she could not say or even guess. Yet, she felt it. The draw of it that reached into her soul and called her on was heavy burden and a lightness in her mind. Hope vied with despair.

Reena moved on, the dim lights slowly closing with her as she struggled on to them. The hues and shadows behind her, a fuzzy wall of incoherence, kept its distance from her. As she moved, it moved. Echoes of people's passing emerged, but nothing more. The further she moved forward towards the destination of her seaside walk, the weaker the vestiges got.

It had seemed an age and more. Aeons had passed like a fleeting wind. Reena stepped. The sand massaged and the waves stopped. The echoes fell silent. The faces merged with the shadows.

#Surreal #Fantasy #ShortStory