Beach Walker. A Short Story, descriptive writing.

If life was a beach then he guessed he was washed up, drifting, within the tide of time, waiting for some sign of what direction he should take next. But for now, he was a beach walker, every morning and each evening. Sometimes he was early enough to see the sunrise or late enough to see it set. He was a beach walker, but he did not know yet why he was here.

Each day as he watched the waves, wash upon the shore he analysed what type of waves they were. Some days the sea came gently creeping forward onto the sandy beach. Other days it came in pounding,roaring. One day the sea was so fierce he could hear it tumbling the stones along the shore line as the waves crashed in and rolled the stones turning them over.

Some days he looked at the gulls being buffeted off their course by the winds from the North and wondered was he like that, not making head way against the difficulties he encountered. Other mornings he watched as the salty-spray frothed into the air above the rocks, he heard the fury of nature, and he saw the calm waves too and yet he did not understand any of it completely. It was as if there was a piece missing, he wanted to write about this place, to capture it in words or even to paint it onto a canvas but the ever changing nature of it stymied his creativity. After all how would he best portray it?

Not that he was here searching for anything in particular, not inspiration or confirmation, maybe just a direction to travel in. He did not even fully comprehend that he was looking or searching for something apart from the inner calm he felt as he explored this ever changing place.

Often as he walked here he began to wonder about the future and happy as he was still something was missing, it nagged at him, at times when he should be feeling happy and content with life. Whatever it was that was that the equation of his life lacked, he did not even know the shape of the space that he needed to fill or how this missing factor would ever fit into in his life. He worked frantically when he was not walking here or spending time with his friends. Alone he never ceased to find more hours in the day than one would have thought possible to work.

So he was a man living happily on the coast, except for the times when he felt sad and that was when he would take himself of to the city for a week or so and visit old friends. It always worked because then he was always happy to return to his life and be thankful that he had left the city life in his past.

He had returned from a city visiting trip last week. Yes it was nice to see his sister and the brood of lively nieces and nephews had been fun to be with and at times he had felt slightly envious of the role his brother-in-law had in nurturing the boys and girls, but he was happy to return to his coastal home and the daily routine of the beach walk.

She was walking a dog, a young lively dog that seemed to have a mind of its own and whenever she called it back it ran twice as fast in the opposite direction. Normally he would have dismissed such behaviour as an ill managed dog, the fault being with the owner. However he felt he had to give her the benefit of the the doubt as the dog was so young and obviously still being trained. He carried on walking his usual route, heading towards the piled up boulders that jutted out into the sea, the place he liked to call the point. Once at the point he would pause and survey the scene before him and ascertain the daily wave action.

Suddenly the young dog was off like a rocket chasing a seagull that it had no hope of catching, it did not even give up its pursuit when the bird took to that air. It just jumped up snapped its jaws together and continued on its way as soon as its paws touched down on the sand. The young women quickened her walk trying to catch up with the wayward rascal, she began to call the dog's name. Jack called the dog over to him in the hope that its attention would be distracted from pursuing the gull, no chance,before the dog had time to realise what it was doing it was in the water swimming like crazy against the tide. The gull had swooped up and flown out to sea and now a wet and bedraggled pup was trying to swim back to the shore, but the place he was in made the water form eddies and swirls and he was almost swimming around in circles and growing more and more tired by the second.

Jack carefully walked out along the uneven pathway that the row of boulders formed and bent forward to try to catch hold of the pups red collar, not a second too soon as the dog began to loose strength and was exhausted from its efforts and the struggle against the icy coldness of the sea water.

The dog went limp and ceased to fight the waves or even the manhandling of his limp body from the water, Jack heaved the creature onto dry land in much the same way as he had landed fish in the past. He picked up the bedraggled bundle in his arms and carried him up the beach to the waiting girl. Even though her face was pinched with the cold and her lips had a slight tinge of blue about them he could not help but notice how pretty she was.

He gently placed the exhausted puppy into her arms but as he did so it began to wriggle and squirm. As the young woman set the dog down on the sand it thanked them both, by shaking itself and showering them with a sprinkling of sand and cold sea water, as it shook itself to dry its coat.

"That's the thanks I get then is it ?" Jack leaned forward to stroke the dogs damp head, as he did so he felt it's needle sharp teeth sink into the back of his hand.

He tried hard not to let rip with an oath as he gazed into the dog owner's face.

Profuse apology followed profuse apology until he asked her to stop.

"He's not my dog he belongs to my sister. She really must start to teach him better manners."

Just as well he's not your dog, thought Jack as although he liked her, he did not want to share her time with him with a bad tempered mutt of a dog.

"Will you phone me after the dog goes back to your sister, if I give you my number ?" he asked her tentatively.

"Why are you going to sue her?" she looked worried.

"Not if you agree to have dinner with me." he grinned at her.

That was the day that Jack discovered that the missing piece of the jig-saw puzzle of his life was called Jeannie and measured 5'4" and had blue eyes and brown hair.