Got To Be Good-looking ('cause he's so hard to see)

~34~

Clare

I walked for miles today it felt like nothing.

When you walk along a sandy beach it does, doesn't it...... time disappears, distance fades, infinity right there in your hand, ready to sail any ocean. You can make it seem so close to a dream and then suddenly it's all there, wheels are in motion.

Oh!

I found the scrap of paper and my pen and jotted words down; the fixing of an itch, a scratch of the surface gold, teasing and glittering underneath, co's I'm ready to take all my chances.

Linda didn't speed up this morning, slamming brakes, rushing the door so I figured she knew I wasn't one to pull a fasty on her with Paul. I left behind the worry as my feet sank in the sand.

It's getting late my stomach is telling me to eat, but my feet lag slowly through the shallow water as I search the tiny pools amid the rocks for sea animals. I saw a starfish earlier but here, now, it's empty of sealife.

Damn Cap the prat, stirring me up like that. I shouldn't have attacked him with words or more Chinese burns but after Paul saying those words that Linda might think. I was conflicted alright!

Cap pressed my buttons so easily like an accordion flexing and weaving to a terrible noise. I shouldn't say that, an accordion has its place somewhere in music, just not mine.

I skipped some flat stones across the water out from the tiny bay area to the right of the cliff, counting seven then eight bounces across the calm protected tide.

Why does he get me so wound up though, do I worry about his perception of me. Nahhh can't be that. 

He's annoying in a different way. Like when your buttered bread lands on the floor buttered side down annoying. But he's interesting too, the way he speaks making me think, making me wonder.

No stop it, he's just annoying.

I wonder what he looks like under the beard.

Stop it!

Looking up as I finally reach the top of the cliff I have scurried up, I see flickers of lightning. I love lightning but NOT thunder. The low rumbles, the sudden bangs, I'm a sucker for crawling into holes to hide from the noise.

Distance is between me and the storm, dark green grey clouds pushing and pulling in the wind as it rises quickly, I'm almost a kite tumbling from the cliff. The terrace door bangs back and forth and I catch it before the glass shatters.

Cappy isn't about and I run to check his windows, pushing shut what I can reach from the outside. I race back to my little sanctuary perched too close to the cliff now I come to think of it. If the wind blows harder I may be picked up like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ!

Seemingly all of a sudden, daylight becomes darkness, pushing away my previously lovely day. No sun to cast, not even a hint of a shadow. It might as well be midnight. I turn lights on and notice the wind has stilled and maybe, just maybe, it is over, all the huff and puff gone out to sea.

No such luck.

Scotland is a place of extremes- beauty, barrenness, dense forest, rolling fields, and open to four seasons in a day.

From Sunshine to this. Lightning strikes, illuminating the room and a deafening roar ensues. Wind and plenty of it. Howling, finding every tiny opening to rush through and around me.

Not abating in the slightest lightning becomes the norm and the crash, bang and rattle of windows has me on the couch, pillow clutched to my stomach, hugging tight. Rain drives heavily down upon the roof, then shifts to push upon the windows.

The noise intensifies.

Glancing out at the wild swaying hanging pots of pretty flowers on the terrace they launch, crashing to the terrace floor.

Earth that was, mud that is.

Rivers of water rushing around the little cottage.

What sounds like a tree crashing comes from toward the road and at first I daren't go look out the window, but in the end I do.

The lights flicker and I groan at what will happen next, I see it as plain as the lightning streaking across the sky, and then, they're gone.

The power is out.

I'm dipped into the noir of the night at the twilight of the day.

At the window it's hard to see, rain lashes the glass and I rub the condensation my breath makes, the room is lit once again. The power is back on- no it's not, I spoke too soon, it's gone off again.

Thunder bangs hardly milliseconds  after the liquid flash of light blinds me.

A pot plant on the window sill is shifted with wind, surely not to move anymore. Another crash and howling ensues so strong and ever so loud, then splinters of glass rain over my body, I scream with fright as I step backwards away without thinking. My foot is now awash with blood as I hobble back toward the less dangerous living area.

Away from the water and most but not all of wind I'm so cold. The icy rain and barreling artic wind has brought the temperature plummeting toward below zero it seems.

My heart rate soars and I need a tea-towel, something, my shirt is closest and I pull it off as I sit gingerly and raise my foot onto the couch. So much blood and I can't apply any pressure, the glass difficult to grasp, to even contemplate an attempt to extract it myself.....I wrap my foot as best I can and breath through the pain.