We, The Dreamers (Short Story Collection) Chapter 3: Story 3: Stranded

Read chapter 3 of We, The Dreamers (Short Story Collection) by Mercynarie on NovelPedia.

Writing Prompt: A sad woman is walking on the beach. She has a handgun in her purse. Genre: Literary Fiction ~ ~ ~ All living things live with the fear of dying. Some just don’t know it until they get close enough to breathe its scent. Normally, the souls of the dead move on, don’t they? Well, not me. The waves beat along the shore in a perfect rhythm. Sea foam inched its way toward the brilliantly golden sand in an endless struggle to embrace the land. It never gets far enough, of course. The land and the sea were never meant to be one body. The sound of children playing drifted to my ears as I eyed the lone family playing with sand castles in the distance. My fingers massaged the cold metal in my handbag, feeling every nook that rudely interrupted their routine. I didn’t want to do this. I never did. Guilt and grief gripped my heart as I raised my handgun at the laughing woman playing with her family. I knew everything about her, and yet she knew nothing about me. We had so much in common, but she was naive. So, so naive. She never saw what was coming for her, and my body ached for the pain she was about to receive. I pulled the trigger. I screamed at the heavens for damning an innocent woman whose only crime was to wish for a happy life. I cursed at God for damning me to be her executioner. I watched as her husband and child continued playing by themselves, ignoring the blood pooling around their sand castle. Oh, that poor, poor woman. Why did she have to do it? Why did she have to condemn herself? I had plans for our future together. Why couldn’t she have held out longer for the sake of her life? Anger flooded me, pushing out the grief within my heart as the handgun dissolved in my hands. I fell to my knees as a terrible pain struck every being of my body. And the lights went out. ~ ~ ~ The salty tang of the seawater woke me up, and I found myself pacing the deserted beach again. The weight of the handgun in my handbag pressed down on me, as if refusing me to lift it again. Screams and crying now permeated the air. My blank eyes drifted to the sole family in the distance. The man was now beating the boy with a shovel while his wife cried for him to stop. I watched as the boy fell to the ground, his head bleeding profusely, while the woman pushed the man away. I watched as the man slapped her to the ground, kicking her in the stomach violently. I looked away, knowing full well the many similar incidents that would follow from this. Still, I refrained from intervening. Perhaps if I had never appeared, the woman’s life might still be spared. Perhaps if I had chosen to do nothing, the man wouldn’t have signed her death warrant. My hands closed around the pistol in my handbag. Perhaps this was the only way I could keep both of them alive. I put the gun to my head. If I am to be killed for simply living, then let death be kinder than man. I pulled the trigger. ~ ~ ~ I left the woman’s unconscious body in the car park shortly after waking up again on the beach. I took her place, greeting her husband with a smile. Her son bounded gleefully beside me as we made our way to the sand. The brilliant gleam of the sun beamed on us as I eagerly built the sandcastles with my ‘family’. They never knew better. After all, I was indistinguishable from the woman they once knew. And for this brief moment, I forgot all about the tragedy that was to befall this family. I barely felt the man’s fists rain down on me. Instead, there was only joy in my heart, knowing that I had taken the suffering in place of his wife. She wouldn’t have been able to take it, but I could. If only I had appeared sooner to take her place. If only I had learnt to appease this man for her. If only I had taken the killing blow for his son. The man stopped soon after, exhausted from his outburst of anger. I let go of his son and pleaded for us to go home. We had scarcely made it halfway to the carpark when I pulled out my handgun. I pointed it at him, knowing that his behavi