Story-A-Day #62: Wave

WAVE

It was one of those perfect summer days. The sun beamed down brightly, basking the world in its warm glow and a sharp, warm wind rustled through the trees. He wandered along the shoreline and watched the seagulls hovering above, motionlessly adrift against the wind.

The waves crashed into the rocky shore filling the air with misty plumes of water. He relished the cool on his skin. He had learned to appreciate the innocent simplicity of this routine, and his underlying reason for repeating the same journey every day.

In the distance, just around the point, he could see her. She was standing motionless in the same place she always stood and despite the majestic show that Mother Nature was putting on, her lithe form was enticing enough to mute everything around her. He crouched down behind a large pile of rocks and watched her.

There was an ethereal quality to her, a palpably winsome disregard of her surroundings. She stood erect, her perfect posture facing out over the water. Even from this distance, he could tell her eyes were closed, shielded from the glare of the sun and the force of the wind.

She was curvy but not voluptuous, the smooth lines of her hips highlighted beneath the sheer white shift draped around her. He could just make out the hint of colour beneath that betrayed her bikini.

She stood motionless, a perfect statue out on the point. Her long blonde hair flowed out behind her in the wind. He felt his breath catch in his throat as she slowly slid out of the shift. It drifted away from her and snagged in a nearby bush and she didn’t turn to see.

Her smooth skin glistened in mid-afternoon sun and he marveled at the fluidity of her movements as she stepped gingerly towards the water. She truly was perfection and he found himself once more dealing with a feeling that was not entirely unlike love.

Her routine remained unchanged over the weeks and he leaned back against a gleaming white birch to await her return. He was not disappointed when 20 minutes later, as anticipated, she resurfaced and returned to her position on the point. She sat almost as still as she had stood, slender arms wrapped around equally slender legs that were pulled up against her chest.

He longed to be part of that embrace, but knew that he would venture no closer than he had already. She might be the entire focus of his lakeside wanderings, his sole reason for returning day-after-day; but in her world, he did not even exist.

She stood then, in a sudden, fluid motion, and turned to face him across the choppy water. She stood there for a moment, her gaze boring straight through him, and then she did something utterly unexpected: She waved.

It was a moment of pure perfection.