The lake breeze chilled the back of his neck as he bent over the boulder to inspect the patterns of lichen spreading on its surface like an ink spill. This was the one he was to find. As the receding waves sucked the water from the sand around it, the rock sputtered and gurgled as if it were alive, a nursing infant or a dying soul. He had trekked almost three miles from his cottage to reach this point on the beach, the farthest out on this side of the island. From here it was fifty miles to the mainland over the surface of an inland sea. He removed his clothes, tossing them into the water. He was to carry nothing. Standing nude, he waited, facing the dunes that rose to the stretch of trees above the beach.
Clouds began to billow on the horizon and the wind stiffened. The chill crept down his back and gripped his ribs. The waves that had lapped his ankles now climbed his calves. Under his feet, the sand began to shift and give way, and he repeatedly adjusted his balance to keep standing.
Behind him, faraway thunder rumbled across the water, the sound undiminished by a distance devoid of obstacles. The sky blackened, and the trees swayed in the wind, their tops bending. The waves reached his waist, the force of the water pushing him forward. He braced himself against the rock, his arms stiff, his hands spread flat against the lichen, its scales raking his palms.
The whip-crack of lightning electrified the air around him in explosions of blinding light that flamed the trees above him. Flung by the wind, shards of spray pierced his skin. He clung to the boulder unable to stand against waves that pounded and choked him. Soon now, soon, he prayed.
He had hoped she would believe him. He had thought she had believed him. They had made themselves known to him gradually. Faintly at first, beginning with only a hint of who they might be, but gradually growing into a full understanding of their purpose for him, a full exposure of their presence. For her sake, he took his time. Like them, he treaded gently, telling her of dreams that were not dreams, imaginings that were not imaginings. Slowly unwrapping his secret for her, a thin layer at a time, until he revealed the reality of his experience of them and theirs of him. She was to come with him. They would go together. But one morning she was gone, leaving him bereft. He had been blinded by his anticipation of what was to come, for what was promised, for the miracle they would soon share. He now recognized her wonder as doubt and confusion; her excitement as fright and vexation; her love as pity and apprehension. She had not believed. So be it. He would go alone.
He could hear nothing but the wind now. A slashing howl beneath thick clouds that rolled and twisted above him. His muscles began to spasm, jerking his limbs and contorting his body, his hold on the boulder now impossible. And then he spied it, an ice-blue orb above the blasting sand. Small at first, no bigger than a child’s fist, but expanding as it glided toward him against the gale, until it had enveloped him like a cocoon, swathing him in tender warmth, and lifting him.
As he rose higher and higher, he watched his body slide from the rock and tumble to the beach in the waves.
Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay – dark and violent waves breadking over rocks with just the hint of blue light
literally stories 
Hi Russ,
Some excellent writing!!!
It did keep you in the dark until it started mentioning his wife / partner and then you began to twig.
This is that bit different that we look for in common themed stories.
I wonder if Russell meant this – I couldn’t help smile when I read that his body was left behind and it was his consciousness (??) that went – At least there would be nothing to be probed!!!!
This was very good and I enjoyed reading it.
Excellent.
Hugh
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Russell
The moment is captured beautifully. And whatever happened, be it madness or actual, it was sincere. And in this strange situation sincerity appears to be the only thing that matters.
Leila
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Great descriptive writing and super build of tension. A moving piece that captures a violent moment sliding into a sort of peace. I really enjoyed reading this – thank you – dd
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Beautifully disturbing and sad with great descriptive power – nice one!
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Russ
I read this as he had died and was watching his mortal coil flail around on the sand. A suicide, he has passed on, but the soul never dies, as Kris Kristofferson has it, and death is not the end, as Dylan says in his song. I know people (no longer here) who told me they were here before, before they passed out of this sphere again and on into (they believed) the next one, which is the next level of reality, the one where you stay and see and live with how you affected every single person you ever affected for any reason here, good or bad. And we look at ourselves and what we left behind for a while before we “pass on;” before we break through the wall into what comes next, which is not as different from here as many believe, only closer to the source; much, much closer.
Either way, the great descriptions of the nature, the water, in this, were wonderful. This is a mysterious piece, like the sea. We all come from water. That is why Virginia Woolf gave herself back to it when she knew it was time!
Thanks for a mysterious, thought-provoking story!
Dale
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Russ
There was a calmness at the center. Never did I feel concern for the man, nor did anything seem unnatural about what he was doing. Never for a moment did I doubt him, nor his intentions. It was that kind of story. From the 2nd sentence on, there was a certainty about it — a specific, impossible to explain Truth. Un-shareable. “This was the one he was to find.”
Simple as that. And so easy to screw up. Thanks for being true. — Gerry
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The descriptions of the lake, lichen, and storm create an almost cinematic quality. Phrases like “the rock sputtered and gurgled as if it were alive” an especially nice. The MC seems to be struggling to believe in something more. Aren’t we all.
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Evokes so powerfully the watery chill, the ‘promise’ at hand. A marvellous build-up to that final embrace, cocooned and swathed.
Geraint
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I can relate, except for what appears to be the death part.
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Great description, but no over description at all either, so an excellently crafted piece of writing that is both visceral and gentle. Reminded me of the poetry of Ted Hughes quite a bit.
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