The Journey Home

A song from her youth strained through the tinny speakers, barely audible as the volume was turned down in deference to the person beside her. The night was rolling in, shrouding the surrounding city landscape in charcoal grey, and black on its relentless march to engulf the sunset. The person beside her was talking about what she would likely find in the supermarket at this time, and was she going to make for her evening meal when she finally arrived home. Then came the inevitable list of all the chores she was required to do before she could have her evening meal ….

The darkness was closing in, increasingly encasing the fading light as the city gave way to farmland.

Rosaleen nodded, grunted, and smiled as she pretended to listen to the person next to her. The reality was that she couldn’t give a shit about what kind of bread the stores would have left, nor did she really care as to the extent of her companion’s daily chores.

Rosaleen fixedly stared ahead of her, through the gloom encroaching into her peripheral vision.

Then she was there, her destination….

…. the ocean stretched out for miles with the undulating waves stroking the beach covering it in white foam, her feet felt warm on fine dry sand which had been baked for the last ten hours; now it was cooling with the invading nightly tide. She felt her face caressed by the warm breeze, a touch as gentle and familiar as that of a lover. The unmistakable warm coastal evening aroma filled her nostrils, triggering unencumbered thoughts. The sunset was beginning to fade, its earlier splendour muted yet still visible in the evening hues of orange, purple, and deep pink.

He was there, of course he was. He was always there; this was their place. His loose shirt billowed gently in the breeze. She felt the anger, or was it resentment, well up inside her. Then as quickly as it rose, it died. The faintest of smiles touched her lips as she remembered how safe he made her feel. Red and orange lights flashed briefly over his shoulder, not bright enough to distract her from admiring him and anticipating his hug as he walked towards her out of the gloom. Every fibre in her body longed to run towards him and encircle her arms around him. To feel that security once again, to not care what the outside world did, or thought was a bliss she rarely felt.

He was saying something to her undoubtedly in that soft, calming, reassuring tone so familiar to her. His voice was carried off on the breeze before his words reached her ears. She was transfixed by his smile. Her mind, body, and spirit relaxed at the sight of him, the stress of the day flowing out of her through her feet, into the sand and carried away by the tide to the ocean of self-doubt. Soon she could ignore everyone and everything around her.

Lights flashed again over his right shoulder, more intense this time. She heard a faraway voice filled with urgency; the beach disappeared, as did he. Rosaleen’s reactions were lightening quick as she steered to avoid the cyclist. The angry drone of her horn sounded long and loud into the late evening air as she swerved passed the other road user; the cycle had no lights on. Mostly though the noise was to bring her back to her current task, getting home.

Upon the waking to her situation the uncomfortable darkness gripped her soul in its unforgiving vice. The sheen glaring off the surface water on the long road now blinding her, even taunting her. As if to remind her of that perfect time when the sunset reflected off the ocean, the place and time they had shared. Happier days of times gone by, times that remain in her soul and mind, though no longer tangible.

She did return to her life, and to her current reality.