Alone? No... Never alone...

A road. Tiny pebbles and shells amongst the sand. Grass struggling to push through the weight, small blades barely visible.

Edging that road, a creeping chaos of various colors chasing each other to the sandy path but stopping short of covering it completely.

She walked, at times looking through the trees to the clouds drifting across the face of the sun, at other times looking to the left then right and breathing in the mixed scents carried on a breeze that occasionally brushed past her.

Alone? No, she was never alone.

She joked about the "voices" in her head but those were only stages of her life competing for front row in her memory slide-show. Pieces of the puzzle that was her life. Some pieces fit at first try, others seemed to fit but were just a bit too big or too small. She knew better than to force them where they were not meant to be. Oh, she could lie and say she didn't cheat now and then, maybe wiggle a piece to try to make it fit but she knew as she stood back that it was not where it was supposed to go.

The smell of salt on the air. An opening where small waves could be seen in the distance as they lapped at the shore and then she was standing in sand that twinkled with flecks of sea worn shells and glass....

The moment, it has been how she has lived for some time now. No reaching too far into the past, no putting off today for tomorrow. There are times when she would bring out a memory or two, dust them off and remember feelings they may have inspired. Times to think of people who crossed her path and shifted her course off of it's usual track.

Dreams, shared as if they were possible with some. Conversations revisited with a smile or a tear and wondering where people went once they left her life, knowing that even in leaving they still remained in many of the things she did throughout her day to day living. They would not know that part of each was immortal in her memories, then again, maybe she was as immortal to some of them.

He stood on the shore watching the horizon, at peace in the quiet away from responsibilities that gave him little time for contemplation. He picked up a stone and threw it wistfully, knowing it would sink but watching it skim the surface twice before it disappeared...

She was inside his head. He pushed her away often and still she would not go. She made him dream of a cabin for two on a snowy night, tales of knights, armour and a stead strong enough to carry them both to that never-land they talked about over the years. That place where happiness was normal and not something that they constantly chased after, where trust and love were sufficient and fairy tales seemed like real life.

She made him dream of his youth and innocence. Bad times faded to the background and only the laughter and future were visible.

He didn't want to think about her but she had been a part of him forever and would be inside him where ever he went.

It was not an obsession. It was a place to go and dream of things almost possible. A place where life and it's heartaches had no where to settle. A place to feel butterflies at thoughts not so complicated and, ever constant, in the shadows, just as he would need her, she was there.

As she stood on one shore, he stood on another...

Alone? No...never alone......