Short Story Fiction
Lost and Found
Scott A. Gese
Two lost souls find one another as they each contemplate their lives.
HDbernd/UnsplashThe sun sat low upon the horizon.
The warm breeze was comfortable. The salt air refreshing. The cloud formation was a perfect setup for a magnificent sunset.
She had traveled to the small island of Kauai to get away. To lose herself in the beauty and serenity of this place. To find herself in the scheme of things that mattered most to her. She needed time to think. Time to unwind. Time to lose track of time itself.
Nothing seemed to matter any longer. Her dreams had been put on hold for too long. Marriage, career, a family, someone to love. They had quietly passed her by like a lone ship in the night. The twilight of her mundane life was now at hand and she mourned the passing of her youth.
She sat on a rock on a beach on an island in the middle of an ocean and stared out upon the water as the sky before her slowly changed from cool blue to soft pink to vibrant red, and then, faded to black.
~~~
He sat on the patio of his hotel as he watched the sun set. He enjoyed the island and was seriously thinking about making it his permanent home. There was nothing holding him back. He had the funds from a lucrative career to carry him through his retirement years. His wife had passed on and with no family to help him grieve, he was left alone and lonely.
He had enjoyed life in his younger years. He had taken it by the horns and wrestled it into submission. During mid-life he was on top of the world. Handsome, successful, invincible. That was all behind him now. Nothing more than a fading memory and it was fading faster than he had expected. He had lost interest in his hobbies, in his friends, in life itself. He was in the process of slowly dropping out.
On a whim, he decided to take a stroll on the beach. It was warm and a beautiful sunset was beginning to take shape. The salt air cleared his head and helped him think, about times past, times present and where his life might go from here.
He walked along the waters edge as the sun dropped low. The changing colors of the sky was like a metaphor for the twilight of his life. It built to a crescendo of vibrant color and then slowly faded to black.
As he walked along the beach, he passed her as she sat upon a rock watching the sunset. Like him, she was alone. When he returned to the spot, she was gone, but not out of sight. She was ahead of him, but he had a longer stride.
He caught up to her as she turned to head up to the hotel where she was staying. His hotel. She had stopped to put her sandals on. Their eyes met for a moment, then two. He introduced himself. She smiled. They shared a late night drink.... and an early morning sunrise.
© Copyright 2024 by Scott A. Gese All Rights Reserved.
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