I was relaxing in my LazyBoy the other night, watching a Nats game on my MLB app...when suddenly an image popped into my head. This sort of thing happens to me quite often. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes an idea for a story will materialize in my melon, unprovoked, dang near fully formed. It’s the strangest feeling. It paralyzes me. Temporarily, I can think of nothing else. This particular story idea was a multifaceted, convoluted mess. I will now attempt to summarize the outline that’s living inside my head, rent free.
It starts with a man laying unconscious on an empty beach. The man begins to come out of it, opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a sand crab, popping up out of his hole...
They stare at each other for a minute. The man is disoriented, confused and increasingly panicked. He lifts himself up, looks up and down the beach, seeing no one. He has no idea where he is or how he got there. It occurs to him that he can’t remember...anything. He checks himself. He’s not injured. He’s dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He’s wearing tennis shoes. He’s covered in sand. He recognizes nothing. He reaches for his wallet. There’s twenty dollars in cash, a picture of a women he doesn’t know and a driver’s license he also doesn’t recognize. He stands up, looks up and down the beach. No houses anywhere. Then, off in the distance he notices someone walking a dog, heading his way.
The next scene if of a woman driving an expensive car. There are a couple of suitcases in the back seat. She is headed for her beach house on Hatteras Island. She has country music playing loudly on the radio. She feels alive and vital...a thrill of expectation running through her veins. She is headed for a rendezvous with the man she has been having a torrid affair with for the past three months. This will be their first time out of town together, away from the prying eyes of friends and enemies. She thinks briefly of her husband, who is out of town on business. She feels a pang of guilt. She instantly suppresses it. Although he’s a good man and doesn’t deserve her unfaithfulness, her lover takes her places she hasn’t been in years. She feels powerless to resist.
The next scene if of a woman driving an expensive car. There are a couple of suitcases in the back seat. She is headed for her beach house on Hatteras Island. She has country music playing loudly on the radio. She feels alive and vital...a thrill of expectation running through her veins. She is headed for a rendezvous with the man she has been having a torrid affair with for the past three months. This will be their first time out of town together, away from the prying eyes of friends and enemies. She thinks briefly of her husband, who is out of town on business. She feels a pang of guilt. She instantly suppresses it. Although he’s a good man and doesn’t deserve her unfaithfulness, her lover takes her places she hasn’t been in years. She feels powerless to resist.
Her husband finishes up his business earlier than expected, and decides to surprise her by driving to the beach house. She had told him she was going down for a few days by herself to work on her tan. As he gets close to the house, a storm starts to form. The winds pick up and it begins to rain. Lightning streaks across the sky. he pulls into the driveway and sees two cars. He walks up the front steps then around the wrap-around porch towards the back entrance...the one he prefers to use. As he walks past the window to their bedroom he sees them in his bed, his wife and his best friend. They are fully engaged in their treachery, oblivious to the man standing at the window. Filled with rage and aflamed by the betrayal he begins to enter through the back door but stops short, paralyzed by fear and grief. Instead he runs down the deck steps and out onto the beach while the rain gets heavier and the lightening flashes wildly all around him.
When the man with the dog arrives, he asks, You ok, mister? I hardly ever see anyone on my morning walk? The dog is busy sniffing all around the ground where he had been laying, then suddenly lets out a soft growl.
Excuse me, but...where am I?
Why...this is Hatteras Island.
But where are all the houses?
Well, there’s only three or four on this stretch. They are still where they’ve always been, as far as I know. You sure you’re ok?
You sure this is Hatteras?
As sure as I am of anything. I moved here after the war in ‘46 and have been here ever since...16 years of beach living!
Wait...what did you say?
I said I’ve been here 16 years. Moved here in 1946.
The man reached again for his wallet, pulled out his driver’s license, glanced at the picture, then saw it...his date of birth...June 10, 1962.
Ok...thats all I got. All of this came to me in maybe five minutes. Nothing since. The question is...should I write this story, or is it just too weird?
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