"The One" by Ian Gielen
The One
by Ian Gielen
Aaron Newburgh took a sip of his cocktail, the bright blue liquid sparkling in the brilliance of the sun that beat down on him and the surrounding beachgoers. The liquid traced a cooling path down his parched throat, and he followed his first swallow immediately with another. Placing the cocktail on the stool beside him, he leant back on his cherished and well-worn beach towel, its once colourful colours now muted and faded, a casualty of father time.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of the cooling breeze drifting in from the shoreline. The cheerful chatter and laughter of the people around him created a comforting din, lulling him into a peaceful sleep.
The sound of feet crunching on sand roused him from his slumber and he opened his eyes blearily. The sun was still at its zenith, barely shifted from when he had closed his eyes. He looked toward the approaching footsteps, expecting to see his wife Carol, but instead found himself gaping at a vision of beauty.
Dressed in a barely there red bikini top and bottom, the woman’s long, blond vibrant hair shimmered in the sunlight as she swayed her lips with each step toward him. She smiled at him, slow and deliberate, a silent invitation lingering at the edges of her lips as her gaze held his.
She stopped before him, her eyes travelling over his sun-dappled body. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to look behind her for Carol but not able to discern her figure amongst the sea of faces at the distant bar.
“Um… Can I help you, miss?” he asked, his voice flat and devoid of any warmth, careful to avoid any hint of interest.
The woman’s smile froze, a strange flash of something he couldn’t identify flickering across her eyes.
She stood there, her eyes fixed on him, silent. Suddenly, a shadow blotted out the sun, plunging the beach into a monotonous gloom. The wind grew colder as goosebumps rose to the surface of his skin. The voices from the beachgoers around him rose to a crescendo, and he brought his hands to his ears to dull the sound. His ears rang, his head pulsed with the rising volume, and he felt his eardrums strain to the point of breaking. He closed his eyes, opening his mouth to scream and suddenly, the sound vanished, replaced by pure, unsettling silence.
“You are not the one,” a soft feminine voice, laced with sorrow, whispered, the words echoing around him before fading like a wisp of smoke, as the blazing sun returned in full force.
Opening his eyes, he looked to where the woman had stood and found it bare. In fact, the whole beach was. It was deserted. The bar, once full of the sound of laughter and shouting, now lay silent. Empty and half-full drinks littered the tables. The sand, once churned up, appeared untouched, as if no one had ever been there.
“What the hell is going on?” Aaron muttered to himself, scrambling to his feet.
He approached the bar, searching for any sign of Carol. There was no one. The tap at the bar dripped water, each one casting a strange echo as it hit the trough below. The air was still and stale, devoid of the earlier breeze.
“Carol?” he shouted, his panic rising as his gaze swept the area. Finding nothing, he walked back out and followed the trail from the beach back toward the car park, a growing suspicion forming that someone was playing a cruel joke on him for reasons unknown.
He had only walked down the path for a hundred yards before his head hit something solid, sending him sprawling.
“What is going on?” he groaned, touching his nose and forehead and wincing at the throbbing pain.
Rising to his feet, he took a few steps forward cautiously until he met the solid surface once more. Confusion filled him as he studied the expanse ahead of him. There was nothing there, and yet there was. He reached his hands up to touch the surface and followed it. It felt like it was curved, although the path ahead of him continued, disappearing toward the car park.
No matter how far he walked to either side, the strange surface blocked him from going further.
“This isn’t possible,” he said, his panic escalating.
He ran back toward the beach, scanning its length for someone, anyone, but as before, the beach was vacant.
Something drifting on the ocean caught his eye. Was that a surfboard? Running toward it, he entered the water, grasped its firm edges, and hauled himself aboard, scanning the water for any signs of life. Nothing. Then the board knocked against something solid.
“No, no, no, no!” he yelled out, reaching out towards where the board had made contact, only to find the same hard surface despite the ocean that stretched out before him.
Then he remembered. His phone. He could call someone for help. He paddled back to the beach and raced toward his belongings near the beach towel, pulling his phone free from his backpack. Tapping on the screen, he paused in confusion at the sound of his fingernails contacting plastic. Taking a closer look at the phone, his eyes widened in disbelief. It WAS plastic. The entire phone was. He threw it to the ground and screamed, a mix of confusion, fear and dread colouring his voice and reverberating around him in a seemingly infinite echo.
#
Above him, eyes no longer those smoothed by youth fixed on the tiny figure trapped in the snow globe on the beach. A sad smile creased the woman’s aged face, lined by centuries of solitude, as she added the snow globe to the already crammed shelf. One day, her dream man, the one who wouldn’t spurn her advances, would be here by her side rather than those she could only admire from afar for all eternity. One day she would find ‘the one’.