Here I was, yet another day on the beach.
Breathing in gusts of briny air from the heavily salt laden sea.
I felt clutched in the arms of Poseidon who dragged me aimlessly in my life, a boulevard of rejections, turmoils and regrets.
I walked along watching each step of mine,
Burying little graves into the golden lawn of finely sprinkled sand,
Swallowing the loud silence that echoed around me.
My heart felt at home with the solitude of the place.
The weary sun was turning in,
With cheeks so red after the long day’s drudgery.
Sinking into the vast blue abyss from which life first arose.
Though now changed in a sinister way, a threat to life itself.
The gutsy waves slammed angrily at the sharpened rocks and the grains of sand flew about as if despised by the very earth it belonged to.
And it was just then that I saw him.
A lone artist,with a brush in his hand and a scrawny dog at his feet.
He was lightly stroking a faded canvas before him,
Eyes on the cherry glazed ocean swallowing the burning ball of heat.
I walked to him and stood before him.
His sparkling gaze still perched on the horizon.
On his visitors arrival, a warm smile bloomed on his crooked lips,
On a face all wrinkled by the sands of time.
There was something about his eyes, something that made me feel he had seen it all.
“Aye! A beautiful day, don’t thou think so son?”
I noticed the peculiar accent right out from a Shakespearen play.
“The warm crimson sun burrowing itself into the motherly embrace of the emerald sea. The tranquil waves gently kissing the rocks and the golden speckles of sand dancing around making castles in the air! Aye, it indeed is a beautiful world and the Lord sends thou with a beautiful life to live in it. But I must be off now son, and aye, yif the Lord wills, we shall meet again!”
I bitterly swore to myself, a green envy taking over my despaired heart.
How could God be so biased making this world so perfect for him, and the very same world so resentful for me?
The next few moments turned my life over.
He whisked up his brushes into a rugged brown bag, so feeble like it was taking its last few breaths.
I glanced secretly over his shoulder like an owl prying silently over its prey.
A bolt of shock and grief shot through me when I saw the contents in his bag.
A few worn out clothes, some torn papers that looked like some unsettled court case, a broken watch and a frayed scarf were cramped into the little moth eaten bag.
As he started folding the canvas, my eyes fell upon the tiny specs of bright colours strewn haphazardly on the sheet. Colours which eventually seemed to be engulfed by a treacherous pool of thick black strokes.
It was then that I realised that green,red,blue and yellow, they were all the same ‘black’ to him.
It was then that I realised what a blind man’s sunset looked like.
He picked up a black stick with one hand, the other hand holding the little that he had.
He tapped the dog gently and whispered “forward”.
And that was the last time I saw him.
A man with so little, and yet it seemed as if the whole world was his.
I watched him walk away, the dog faithfully guiding him along the shore, until they soon became two tiny grains of sand that swirled around in the dusk breeze.
Yes, here I was, yet another day on the beach.
But this time, for once, even the charcoal dipped night sky, with grey clouds hovering around with ghostly white eyes, seemed to have never been more beautiful.
