I Dissolved as Footprints in the Sand
Pursued along the beach, the path of choice leapt toward me.
I was being followed. I was pursued by something I knew, and also knew not. I abruptly turned and stared at my pursuer. Was it to be my attacker, that which would crush, maim, or destroy me? So often that could be the case. This time it stared at me and I stared back. The challenge wafted in the air, crippling any possible forward motion. We stood poised like fencers about to lunge or parry. Torn in three directions, my breath hovered. Indecision gripped my throat, stranging a tentative weep.
Time was suspended, movement utterly stilled. Only my pulse reminded me of my perceived existence. My thumping pulse and the rhythm of the waves that lapped ever-closer to my feet, held me. I stood on the beach and glared at that which enticed my fears to rear themselves, to materialize.
Turning away I dared to peer into the stretch of untouched beach. There was no other being. No other had chanced to tread on the innocence and purity of that which lay before me. I was not marooned nor abandoned. I perched on the razor-edged precipice of hazard.
I felt the boring expectations of the being waiting in an assumed cloud of arrogance only breaths behind me. It was questioning, looming, poised and ready to pounce on my simplest frailty or quiver of weakness.
