A Beach for My Bed

A three-part story about a man plagued by so much guilt, he runs away from his family. As he wrestles with nothing, his life changes when he meets Louise. Can she save him?

________ \\ _______

Brian was not a bad person. He was down on his luck and paying for a stupid mistake with self-imposed isolation.

He did not mean to hurt anyone; exactly the opposite. He wanted to make everything better for his family — his wife and kids. All he had done was make things worse.

Now, he didn’t want to see anyone; he just wanted to wallow in his own self-pity for a while. He sat on the rock, jutting out of the sand. It was hard and uninviting, and the sand seemed so white and clean, unlike him.

He could smell his own stench, and he hated it. He would have to wait until it was dark to go to the shower complex to have a shower.

He checked his plastic shopping bag to ensure he still had the towel he had found on the beach yesterday and the jumper he had found the week before. Yes, they were both there.

He looked at his green tent folded up next to his bicycle. About three weeks ago, he retrieved the bicycle from the roadside collection, which had been a godsend.

When the people came down to his beach to walk their dogs, go fishing, or just soak up the grandiosity of the ocean, he could escape the loneliness of his beach. He had always loved the ocean, but these days, it haunted him. It had become his bed, his refuge from a world he could no longer face.

He would have to get his tent up early tonight; rain was forecast. He planned the rest of his day. He would wait until fewer people were around and then visit Louis in her mobile coffee truck.

Louise was lovely. She was in her mid-twenties and had the smile of an angel. Her long black hair framed her face. Her smooth, youthful skin and that wonderful smile reminded him of his daughter. He wondered how she was getting on and how all his family was getting on. It had been four weeks since he had seen them.

They would be worried and undoubtedly frantically searching everywhere for him.

They would not find him in a hurry. He had caught a bus and traveled three hours south. He had not taken anything that could identify him — his driver’s license, his credit card.

He was a nobody, and the way he looked now, it would be hard for anyone to recognize him.

It had not been easy. He had taken some money that he used to buy food but had slept where he could. Hotels were expensive, and he wanted to make the money he had last as long as possible, but it had run out after two weeks.

He had been moved on from benches and had decided, after one night of being harassed by a group of thugs, that it was safer to just camp in the dunes on their beach.

The beach had become his bed.

It provided him with cover during the day, where he could sit with his guilt and not have to put up with people gawking at him.

What had he done?

How could he have been so stupid?

How to make things better haunted him?

He had no answers and wished he would wake up and find out it was just a bad dream.

A tear formed in the corner of his eye. He had thought many times about giving himself to the police and just putting an end to the nightmare he was living.

He had thought about killing himself but always ended up in the same place, too gutless to do it.

His life had always been like that, with him afraid to say no to anyone, and now look where it had led him.

He gazed at the coffee truck. A family had just moved away, and now was his opportunity. He left his belongings, such as they were, and walked the 50 meters to the truck.

As usual, Louise saw him coming and greeted him with a big smile.

“Hello Brian, I am just making you a coffee. You must have been cold last night. What will you do tonight?”

He felt bad because Brian was not his real name. His real name was Simon, Simon Cresi. He had to adopt a name, and Brian was the first to come to mind.

“Thank you, Louise. You are an angel. I am grateful; thank you for asking. I don’t have any money to buy the coffee. Can I owe you for another cup?”

“Don’t worry about that, Brian; you just take care of yourself, and here, take this roll and this cake.”

“I bet you have not eaten since yesterday,” she said with that beautiful, warm smile.

It made him melancholy and ashamed, so much that he had to make a special effort not to let the shake in his voice show.

“Thank you, thank you, you are too kind.”

Brian took the coffee and returned to his rock. He devoured the roll and cake. It tasted so sweet with the coffee that warmed his soul. He could feel Louise’s eyes on him, staring from her truck, not in an unkind way.

Rather, it was with a feeling of compassion and helplessness.

He looked out at the ocean, the waves lapping the shore. In the distance, he could see the dark clouds forming; it would be a rough night. He would need to tie his tent down well to prevent it from blowing away. The thought crossed his mind, “What would happen if his tent did blow away?” He would have nowhere, then.

The beach would no longer be his bed.

****

Brian busied himself during the day as best he could. When night started to fall, he readied himself to wash in the toilet block. There was no one around. He tried to make himself look slightly human, although it was a pointless exercise to him.

He would only have to wear the old, soiled clothes again, apart from the jumper he had found.

The sky opened up as he approached the toilet block, and the rain pelleted down. He sheltered in the entrance; he was paralyzed. He just could not remove his clothes even though they were wet; it was too cold.

He didn’t feel he could return to his tent either, as trying to put it up in this weather would be a disaster. He hoped the weight of his bike that he had placed on his tent would be enough to stop it from blowing away.

He would have to shelter here tonight and hope no one came. The rain dampened the air and gave the block that ‘public toilet smell.’

Compared to him, it must have smelt like perfume. He was disgusted with what he had become.

He slumped down just out of the rain and looked out over the water again. He was so tired. So lonely. So desperate and, underneath, worst of all, so guilty about what had happened. He put his elbows on his knees and started sobbing.

Deep sobs.

He didn’t care; no one was around to hear him, and the sound of the rain was deafening anyway. He needed to let go of his guilt, and hoped it might improve things in some small way. It didn't.

It was a cold night. The wind and rain were relentless. A gale blew all night long until the early hours of the morning. He did not sleep at all. The cold, the rain, and the continual thoughts of whether his few belongings would still be where he had left them haunted him.

****

Morning broke, and at least the rain had stopped momentarily. He was startled by a voice.

“Hello, hello, Brian.”

It was a male voice who knew his name. No one knew his name except Louise, and given the weather, she would not be here for hours, if at all.

He crept back into the toilet block.

“I will see if he is in here,” he heard a voice say.

The voice got closer. “Brian, Brian, are you in there?”

He realized that he had nowhere to run. He was trapped.

Who was this person looking for him, and how did he know his name and even remotely where he was? ........

Till next time,

Calvin