The Beachcomber

Mid-morning. The sun had begun burning off the fog on the Atlantic. Charlie Meager has trekked two kilometers and climbed over two hundred meters along a barely discernable trail to reach Beachcomber’s shack on the bluff overhanging Eden’s Cove. The old hermit is the subject of what is to be Charlie’s human interest story.

It was the village folk of Come-By-Chance that had named the old hermit: Beachcomber. No one knew the man’s real name. Every day, after the tide receded, he would be seen scouring the beach around Eden’s Cove in search of interesting pieces of driftwood that he sculpted into a variety of recognizable animals. His menagerie of driftwood animals included: bears, foxes, cattle, cats, dogs, and fowl. Some said he even sculpted fish, which he then released into the sea. His many creatures were displayed around his shack, in the surrounding woods, and in the fields and clearings. It was said that they were Beachcomber’s only companions and that he sought none other.

“Hello! Are you the man they call Beachcomber?” Charlie asks upon reaching a grizzled old man busy whittling a piece of driftwood.

“Who wants to know?” says the old man not bothering to look up. His attention is totally focused on carving the outline of a beaver.

“Charlie Meager, I’m a reporter for the St-John Crier.”

“So what do you want?” Shavings fly as the old man’s knife adds finishing touches to the beaver’s tail.

“I want to write a story about you and, most of all, about all those animals you create and display about your place. I saw quite a few of them on the way here. They’re very lifelike.” Charlie meant to say he had seen a number of creatures actually move about, but he feared being accused of imagining things.

“Glad you like them.” Beachcomber flips the beaver over on its back and applies his knife to the animal’s front paws.

“I do have one question though.”

“What’s that?” Beachcomber brushes away some wood shavings and, like a blessing passes, a gnarled hand over the creature’s belly.

A shiver runs down Charlie’s back. For a moment it seemed as if the beaver had come to life.

“You’ve sculpted every creature known to man except – man himself,” Charlie says.

Beachcomber thrusts his knife into the log upon which he had been sitting and stands up. His physical presence seems to tower over everything about. “And you will never see one,” he says, his steel-gray eyes flaring.

“I gather the subject is taboo.” Wary of the old man’s sudden ire, Charlie steps back,

“It is.”

“But why not – man?”

“Look what happened the last time I created one,” Beachcomber says, disappearing into his cabin after slamming the door behind him.