Wandering Along the Coast
It had been one of those spring days that slowly gave itself away to the evening.
The sun was already leaning toward the horizon, casting a softer light over the water as I walked along the coast. There wasn’t much around me—just the sound of the sea and the quiet rhythm of my own steps.
My thoughts had been moving ahead of me for a while.
Fragments of ideas, unfinished sentences… things that felt close, but not yet clear enough to hold onto.
At some point, I had stopped walking.
I sat down in the sand, almost without thinking, and reached for my notebook. The pen had found the page before I had fully decided what it was I wanted to write.
Something had been forming.
I let it.
Time had passed unnoticed.
By the time I looked up again, the sun had almost disappeared, leaving only a faint glow behind it.
For a brief moment, I had been staring out at the water without really seeing it.
Then a voice broke through, gentle and close.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
I flinched slightly, as if I had been pulled back from somewhere further away than I had realized.
When I turned my head, I saw her sitting a few feet beside me.
About my age.
Watching, but not intruding.
A soft chuckle escaped her as she noticed my reaction. It wasn’t mocking—just… warm.
I felt a smile form before I had fully decided to respond.
And for the first time that evening, my thoughts didn’t feel like something I had to hold onto.
They simply… paused.