The Old Man
By June Gemmell
Listen to June reading her story:
This holiday was a mistake. I wandered alone and lonely, boots slithering over clumps of seaweed left by the storm, whispering his name to the wind. The grey sea merged with the cloudless sky. Synthesis.
I’d closed myself off to everyone back home, couldn’t bear the joyful purpose of their lives. Here in the winter-deserted seaside town I’d only spoken to the woman who ran the hotel. Cheap, not cheerful. I could do with company. Even someone to chat about the British weather with.
There appeared to be no one else on the beach, just me, a few tumbling plastic bags and my regrets. But in the curve of the bay an old man sat hunched, perched on tumble-down rocks thrown up by the sea some millennia ago, bony knees supporting his elbows. He faced the sea, the brow of his cap lifted for a better view. I followed his gaze. A far-off boat trawled the horizon.
I had seen him before, a few times. Always in the distance.
He didn’t move as I came closer, the demerera-crunch of sand and shells beneath my boots. His chin rested on his hands. His eyes fixed on the wavering light beyond the water, perhaps remembering storms survived, men lost to the waves.
I reached the rocks. I hesitated to break his solitude, and coughed to announce my presence, preparing a friendly smile. He would tell me stories of harsh winters when boats were lifted from their moorings by the power of the sea in the deep black of night.
Five steps closer and my old man vanished. He was nothing but ridges and corners in the rocks. Shadows and hollows. An illusion. The waves exhaled and withdrew. As did I.
I returned the way I had come, but on the path above the beach, where spiky clumps of marram grass held the dunes in place, I glanced back. He had reassembled. Facing inland now he nodded a greeting. He smiled, a rough stubble smile. And touched his cap.
June Gemmell writes short stories and flash fiction. She is a reader for Fractured Lit and Thin Skin Magazines. Her words have been published by Gutter Magazine, Northern Gravy, Hooghly Review, Gone Lawn, The Phare and National Flash Flood. She has almost completed the final, final draft of her novel, but she has been saying this for a very long time.