Short Stories

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TIME ON MY HANDS
by Tracy Noble

The wind is up. I should be shivering, but instead I stand barefoot in the sand, head back, arms outstretched, eyes peacefully closed, a hurricane of hair lashing my smiling face. Basking in the blustering blueness of sky and sea that form a seamless blend along the shoreline, I soak up the invisible sun’s phantom warmth.

Although the air is cruel in its coldness with salty icicles pelting uncovered skin and punishing even the bravest of beachcombers, I stand blissfully unperturbed. I welcome the stinging wind as it shapes the sand into billowy drifts. Somehow, the biting coldness makes each step more concrete, leaving imprints that follow and find me as I wander. The limitless coastline calls me with its resonating echo of seashells. It has a Pied Piper effect, luring me to this place where time stands still and memories are frozen in sand.

I welcome this salty sandblasting. In fact, I yearn for it like a block of marble for its Michelangelo. Each barefoot step draws me nearer to my masterpiece moment in what I consider heaven-on-earth. Tirelessly, I explore and examine the winter wonderland unfurling in all its glossy wetness and glorious graininess. The sharply honed landscape, sculpted by childishly capricious forces of nature, taunts and teases as it morphs and meanders and mesmerizes into a million different moments captured, clinging to bare feet and frozen fingers at the end of this perfect winter day, leaving me to treasure the sand between my toes –and time on my hands.

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