A large handsome rock sat on its own on the southern side of a smooth pebbled beach by the sea, an ideal place for Edward to park his wearisome, wandering self. He stopped to tower over it a while and admire its layers, curves, lines and above all its striking bold blackness. “A slate to contemplate” he half sung, half announced in an operatic fashion, arms open to the side as if he were about to hug the thing. He looked around with a smirk to see if the coast was clear, unsure if he had just embarrassed himself or actually found himself amusing. Most probably the former he agreed, and sat down with a grimace. He sighed once again like he had been constantly this whole grey day. Not only did he not have any ideas for his next book he didn’t even feel like he wanted to write at all. He looked around a while, trying to make things beautiful by staring at them for longer than they needed to be stared at and giving them more thought than most would consider necessary. He pulled a thread out of his felt suit and let the wind blow it out of his fingers and into the boundary of the pebbles and the sea. He picked a dry leaf off the ground and wondered how it got there with not a tree in sight then crushed it in his palm and fed the crumbs to the wind... It did not land in the same place as the thread. Even though he was, Edward did not consider him self a dreamy romantic type and felt a bit unmanly playing with leaves and sentiment in the wind; he picked up the largest pebble within reach, about the size of a flattened grapefruit, and hurled it as far as he could into the dark blue sea. The stone seemed to implode with the surface creating a brief black hole before dropping to the bottom. Satisfied, he dusted his chest and thighs with two hands. With one arm on his hip and the other shielding the non-existent sunshine from his eyes he looked out towards the blurred horizon, imagining he was a sailor, a man of the sea. In his head he played out a great scene starring himself upon the deck of an old rusted fishing trawler, his half dreaded long curls being blown about and his grease-stained bearded face bombarded with hard sharp drizzle. He could almost hear himself singing to the sky, improvising some half drunk half grumbled sea shanty. And the sea would play like an accordion and the gulls would dance like dirty sailors in a port town bar, the kind of rowdy bunch he would only write about in his wildest pages.
As he inhaled Edward smelt his aftershave, he disliked it and thought it made him smell like a sleazy old man, the kind that pinches girls behinds in the street. He decided to throw it away when he got back to his hotel room, despite his cheapness. He rubbed his clean-shaven chin, cheeks and upper lip then ran his fingers through his neatly groomed haircut as he completely fell back into the body of Edward the novelist.
Walking back slowly he spotted a soldier crab scuttling sideways atop the pebbles.
“Hey soldier, where’d you learn to march like that?” Edward demanded, releasing the day’s final childish outburst.
The crustacean rushed under a rock without a reply. After standing and waiting for it a short while Edward sighed once more and tried shake out his foolish behavior. He was sick of seafood, he affirmed, and went to bed hungry later that night.
Nine months on he typed the last line of his book. It wasn’t his best work and he knew it, but he didn’t mind.
