Perhaps it was her imagination, but the beach horizon seemed an endless panorama. It curved and stretched into an engulfing strip of mid tones, displaying wonderful colours – brilliant blues, misty greys and ochre yellows all sat comfortably together on the bed of landscape. The surf arced and broke, causing an explosion of whites that flicked and fell as if fireworks celebrating the meeting of the land and the vast ocean.

Emmoline was sat upon the sprawling plateau of rocks to the west side of the long beach, and was dreamily facing seawards. Elbows on knees and hands under chin, she rocked back and forth, cuddling her legs into her torso and shuddering into a protective foetal ball against the prevailing salty breeze. Much to her annoyance, it persistently blew the sharp ends of her windswept hair into her eyes. She wiped her watery eye as the salt air stung and cursed aloud whilst battling to regain focus; finally the pain eased, the wind died and the sun emerged. It glowed warmth as it revealed its hiding place from behind a thick puffed out white cloud; it was a warmth that dropped and spread over the world below, providing the rocks and sand with a blanket of heat and tranquillity, which they received like a child having just spoken grace. This in turn was passed into her body and legs, warming her deep inside. The feeling, although temporarily offering completeness with ultimately everything, faded, as the sun teased its audience and yet again took its bow.

She blinked an angelic blink towards a shabby looking gull that had swept in front of her picture and had settled irritably to her left side.

‘Hello birdee!’

The gull, in an untrusting fashion, erratic and unpredictable, eyeballed Emmoline.

‘Do you think Mother could make a dish that I smell now?’ she continued, interested in how far she could take the encounter.

It twitched back repetitively, and performed a proud sequence of claw steps. Winding up its familiar high-pitched siren, the gull opened its beak and flew off, obviously not interested in mothers cooking. She stroked the flesh of her cheek downwards and sighed.

‘Have a nice day birdee’

All morning Emmoline had wandered, softly humming and singing across the expansive golden farmed fields and lush headlands; she had danced around the grey sculptured beauties in the old cemetery, singing out loud to scare the squirrels; she pushed through the pungent, aromatic Cedar Wood; and finally she made her way down to the beach that paralleled the long coastal road to Boon Rawd. Behind this world through which she explored on the late summers morning, sat the huge mountains. Their cloud tipped splendour cut though the midday haze and cast wisdom and judgement on all that happened. Like a grand jury pondering on an important decision, they gave an exciting edge to her day, and a strange sense of comfort.

Despite the adventurous morning, the walk had failed to calm the turmoil in her head, and if anything, the oxygen and exercise had provided her with a somewhat surreal and intoxicating angle on what was still the same world. A world of mental agitation and trouble. ‘Acute existential angst’ was what her father had called that which her mother had simply put down as a depressing period in the girls life. She was an enigmatic young female; her slender nose, delicate porcelain skin and her warming eyes that disappeared when she laughed of course helped matters. Her lips were thin, and apart from the strands that were cut shorter at the side of her face, her hair came down to her shoulders and was mousy in colour. She had a sprinkle of almost opaque sandy coloured freckles over her nose that became more noticeable during the summer months.

Something splashed in the rock pool beside her. Her teeth grated, as she chewed her cheeks in concentration. She dipped her left thumb into the palm of her hand and stretched it upwards and outwards. It cracked. Once again her mind began to spiral and dilate into a philosophical checkmate. The seascape stepped back to make room for her thoughts. Her vision became a swirl of blue and with the agility of the dogfish in the rock pool beside her, she darted unpredictably inside the mystical gaze upon her face. She digressed and returned, around things then, and things now, wandered pre-cautiously into future territory and immediately fled back.

‘Perhaps’ her mind stepped carefully ‘there is a way I can feel comfortable with merely existing, without even questioning this purpose…’

She re- focused and squinted on the ocean, observing the swelling pre- cursors to waves, and the waves themselves that broke with ferocity on the edge of the greenish blue. They finally dissolved into a reflective mirrored sandy floor.

‘Maybe the emphasis and orientation of the future rests heavily on what is learnt and experienced from what we directly know, so the present emerges as an isolated state of agitation being continually dictated by the shadow of the past…’

Her mind continued its game as the waves boomed and crashed.

‘...in which case probably my present state is irrelevant’

She clasped either side of forehead to stop the spiralling thoughts, and brought it to rest on her knees. As the day warmed again and the breeze died, her skin became the backdrop for beads of sweat to roll and pave from her brow. In the distance, a merchant ship was ploughing its way to an unknown destination. It seemed to take an age to move only a small way across the horizon line and Emmoline found time to become comfortably lost in the ship, the crew, their destination and possible adventure.

‘Why do we think and yearn for that which we cannot reach or have? Maybe be we see good potential in things, and care not for their distance away?’

Again the gull landed, but seemingly sensed the air was anything but the right one to win a crust of bread, so flew away.

She scowled at the clouds.

As she stood up to face the ocean, she stroked her hair behind her ears and stretched her legs and feet, feeling the tingling muscles awaken. Standing on tiptoes, she took once last glance at the great sea, beat her brilliant white wings and flew high into the deep blue sky.