She watched the waves ebb and flow. They crashed onto the rocks casting white foam back into the fury. The wind bit into her from the north. From time to time she turned to face the wind and the silent tears rolled away.

She was sad, not depressed, just sad. She remembered something about the 7th wave being stronger so tried to find it; anything to stop the melancholic merry-go-round of her mind.

When had she last slept? The painful to watch images spun in her head on an endless slideshow presentation.

The wind gusted and sent her reeling into the water and rocks. Tumbling in the freezing water she felt strangely elated. Refreshed by the water and hurled around, broken by the rocks, she smiled.

Two hefty fishermen hands attached to muscular arms that spent each day hauling nets full of fish dipped into the freezing froth and pulled her out. The body bled from what seemed like everywhere. She thought of ‘Carrie’ and the flood of pigs blood that shrouded her in front of the prom class. This was different. This blood was hard won. The fisherman carried her effortlessly to his jeep, drove her home, shouted to his missus and brought her in the stone cottage.

“What’s this?” his wife asked.

“The storm took her, I saved her,” he explained.

“Och,” she replied and got about sorting the woman out.

The smell of Dettol, TCP and sudacreme soon filled the air. The wife asked the woman little questions to ascertain what she was doing on the beach on such a stormy day. Of course the wife noted the salty tears, the shiver and the shutdown from such questions.

The wife persisted as she drenched the woman in medicated salves.

The woman couldn’t say. She was devastated. Her life was a travesty, her marriage crumbling with each second she spent away from John.

And what about John?

The poor victim in all of this, so he told her.

To be continued …