On the last Friday of April, Wilhelmina Mann really meant to be on time. But the Gold Coast autumn mornings were still balmy, so it was easy to leave her warm bed and make her way down to the beach for the sunrise.
She was only going for a quick look because she wanted to make sure today started in the best way. A reset after last Friday. The wet sand crunched under her toes, and she spun one foot around to dig a great circle. It would wash away in an hour as the tide turned, and by then Wil would be deep in bathroom renovations. Pity.
The sun was rippling up gloriously from the glassy sea, turning the scattered clouds pink and orange, and glinting golden off the high-rise glass behind the beach. A morning of ordinary wonders. Far too nice to be at work. But she wasn’t staying—she had promised herself she was going straight back to shower, dress and be at the site on time at six. Five to six, even!
She snatched up a sandy sea pen with a pleasing shape, washed her feet in the water, and turned to follow her tracks back up to the carpark. Her footsteps had made a path right through the centre of her sand circle, suggesting the trunk of a tree. Wil tipped her head, then dipped the sea pen to the sand, and swept the trunk line down to touch her circle. There. She liked the way an uneven lump of sand had made a shadowlike a tiny boulder on the edge of that line. She used her toe to push up another lump, then another, forming rocks around the beginnings of tree roots.
She came back to herself a few minutes later. The sea pen and her toes were sandy, her hair escaping its band. She had made the inscribed tree into a lush canopy across the top of the sand circle, and the spreading roots into a mass across the bottom. Perfectly balanced. She smiled, satisfied, just as she registered something amiss. The sun was higher now, the mellow glow of dawn burned away into a less friendly light. Wait, that wasn’t right…
Leave a Reply