Amid a wind of such deep chill that bones could snap and blood freeze still, the beach ball blew in its panicked dance. Whipped by a howling gale, deaf even to itself, all catching hands had been vanquished to firesides and Christmas hearths. And so it tumbled, on and on, its merry never-fade colours singing out. Then it wedged beneath a hut of peeling paint and shattered windows and, as if a ghostly Jeeves stood there, its door swung smoothly wide.
A lone beach ball trickled down the sand, salt smothered and wrinkled. On a brighter day perhaps the wan plastic would have shone, but beneath the low grey sky it was so very shadow-eaten. And all the way to the edge of the cold tide, its roll was a grainy sigh. Then it was there, upon the white fringe, negotiating its transition to the deep.
In a light that dapple danced, bounced a beach ball. Down the pathway it wandered with the gait of a happy child, a bounce and a skip here and there. At one time it paused as if to listen to the song of the early birds, to turn a pirouette, yet beyond that it seemed to have a determination to be a ball immune to gravity. I sat there, my pyjamas billowing in the spring air, my brain all of a tickle with new ideas.
Arcing in the blue, as if it were the tip of a conductor's wand, the beach ball swirled high above the yawning sands. It was a sky ballerina, plumped up so proudly with oceanic air. Then, as if by magic command, down it came to my outstretched arms. In the peach light of that early day, I took it as a good omen from the world beyond. Be patient. Wait. All will come right.