Coins

Somewhere out there the sand turns to sea and somewhere beyond that the sea turns to sky, but you can't see it because all there is today is grey mist.

You are sitting on the sea wall between prefab bungalows and the rest of the world. You are not what could be called unhappy, but you are not happy either. Neither are you bored; your hands are busy practising coin tricks, rolling a ten pence piece so it dances atop your knuckles - disappearing it and reappearing it in the other hand, or out of thin air. Once you harboured ... kept ... nurtured a dream that this skill, honed, would get you out of there. You don't do that any more.

I am not here to save you from anything. I am just a narrator and all I can do is nudge you into action. In a few minutes I am going to have a car drive by with a girl in it you remember, but before then I am going to have you drop the coin.

There it goes! Bouncing down the wall and silently into the sand below.

It has been a very long time since you last dropped a coin. Your hands are confident, supple, educated - you were not trying anything new or difficult. For these reasons you are surprised. You look from the coin to your hands to the coin again. It seems prophetic that you dropped it, you think it might be a sign.

It might be. Only the future will tell what is a sign and what is not.

You don't go down to get it. If you did it would break the stillness, you would drop easily onto the beach and you would not sit on the wall again that day - you would walk off, you would do something, you would return to your life. It is not meaningless that you do not do this, even ten pence is worth something to you these days, but still you do not. There is no profound reason why, you are making no gesture - you do not intend to leave the coin but right now you prefer to sit, you prefer to remain in the moment.

It is good. If you dropped down onto the beach you would not be on the wall when the car passes. You would not turn and recognise the driver. The driver would not recognise you, would not bring the car to a sudden halt a few yards down the road.

What she means to you, the driver, is known only to you, just as what you mean to her is known only to her. I can tell the history - that you once meant everything to each other - but the only thing that matters about the history is that it exists, and is remembered by those it matters to. The details, where it began and how it ended, do not concern the here and now.

You turn but do not get up. The driver reverses, the car whining, and leans over and rolls down the window.

She calls your name.

You answer with hers.

She says she is leaving at last. Getting out. She asks you to go with her.

What happens next is up to you.