a cloudless sky, the low angle of its light turning the sea a deep blue. Looking around, Nicola realized how lucky she was to have this, to experience this small paradise, deep in the west of the land, when all that awaited her back home were crowds of busy, bustling, blinkered people, all rushing around at top speed, always looking forward, upwards and outwards, but never seeing themselves. Never looking inwards, where the real questions lay and where the real answers could be found.
Nicola realized that soon she would have to go back. Her short stay away from her other life could not last forever and, although she drank in and craved for the beauty and passion of the land and its wild force that was so intense here, she wanted contact again with her friends and family. She knew her situation with Stefan would have to be sorted out, that she could not hide away from it forever. She also knew that she would have to sort her own self out. She was desperate to break out of the corporate prison factory she had become entangled within. She no longer wanted to face having to spend the rest of her life sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen, every second of the day filled with dull, grey tedium.
Although she had never believed in this intense drive and desire to make as much money as possible, this master that enslaved and deadened people for life, and produced endless rows of computer-filled offices worked by equally endless rows of spectacle-wearing humans, like battery hens, but producing bigger and bigger circles of money rather than eggs, she was a part of it. Despite her unwillingness she served the same master and she had to get out. The only problem was that she didn’t know how. But now she was free. This sudden realization hit her. She had no ties, no boyfriend or mortgage to tie her down. She had no idea what she was going to do but it was a start.
Nicola strode into the surf, the chill water splashing against her legs, until she was waist waist-deep, and then she dived down into the water and began swimming along, parallel with the beach. The coldness of the sea slowly soothed the chaos of her thoughts and she swam along, her mind gradually emptying, trying to forget itself, and after a while she just knew of the movements of her arms and the kicking of her legs against the water, and she felt the dreamlike quality of swimming. How, as she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself moving through a void, floating in a silky darkness where nothing else existed.
It was then that the sudden, strong feeling of being watched returned, and Nicola’s eyes snapped open. She looked quickly up to the cliffs but could see no one there. It was then that she noticed a man standing on the beach near to where her towel was, and she saw that he was watching her swim. Shivers ran through her body amplified by the coldness of the water.
Nicola swam on, hoping that the man would go away but he did not and soon cold forced her to stop swimming. Nicola stood up in the water and looked all around. The beach was deserted, and she felt suddenly vulnerable. Walking slowly through the waves towards the beach several meters away from the man, she looked more closely at him and realized that he was quite young, looking in his late teens. Their eyes met and the boy smiled, calling out to Nicola across the surf.
“I don’t mean to scare you. I was watching you swim. You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”
“I was until I noticed you,” called Nicola as she walked out of the surf onto the warm, dry sand of the beach. She walked towards the boy looking at the way he stood, the way he held himself. There was something about him that made her believe she knew him.
“I was at the hotel. They said this was a nice place for a walk,” he said, lowering his voice as Nicola approached and stood in front of him. “I’m sorry if I have bothered you.”
“It’s no bother,” said Nicola noticing for the first time his eyes. They burned with an intensity that filled her, their color a deep blue, like that of the sea, and she could not bring herself to look away.