A Reading from Moonshard by Stephen Baird

“I heard the sea before I saw it and listened to the rhythmic sound I’d so longed to hear again. Jen and I’d loved it. Listening with only smiles shared between us in the silences. Could we get back to that? I remembered this beach as magical. I needed some magic now. For my anger. My helplessness. Something flickered in my heart. This was a beautiful evening, so beautiful I could almost believe anything could happen.

“The sound of the sea was the same, the outlines of the rocks were the same, the beach was the same. Everything was the same, except it wasn’t. Some of my happiest times had been here but, at this moment, happiness was for others. Not me. Not anymore. That’s a stage of grief, they would tell you.

“The moon had dusted everything with silver. I loved nights like these. A movement caught my eye and I watched the shooting star sweep down across the sky. I hadn’t seen one of those since I left Cornwall. London has light, lots of it, but not from stars.

“I stopped. Something was different. Something new on the beach.

“Curious, I wandered nearer. It looked like a cross, a silver cross, stuck upright in the sand near to where the water’s edge flowed gently to and fro. I narrowed my eyes. It was not a dissimilar height to me and – I froze. It was a person.”