The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful?

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This is a story that started out to be whimsical but took on a slightly different tone by the time it was ready to be shared. I hope you enjoy it. Dawn, at the beach, at sunrise, alone, revels in the silence as even the waves are quiet on such a calm morning. She has the sand to herself as she sits watching the sky change from black to gray to red to blue. Her knees are hugged close to her chest and she shivers in awe at the birth of the new day. The silence of the moment is broken by the call of a seabird. The call awakens others and for a moment Dawn is serenaded by the squawks of the gulls roused by the coming of the light. One by one, and then in a great flutter of feathers, they all take flight, rising higher and higher into the clear sky until they wing away in search of their morning meal. The gulls depart but do not leave Dawn alone. Movement to her right catches her eye and Dawn smiles at the antics of the Sand Pipers darting up and down the beach along the edge of the surf. The rising sun has awakened the Sand Pipers and, it seems, the waves themselves as they begin to roll onto the shore with more courage, adding the percussion of the tide to the fluting notes of the pipers. From a distance a noise not natural to the beach begins to intrude upon Dawn's solitary revelry. It is a harsh sound, a mechanical sound. It grows closer and closer until, suddenly, it stops. Dawn waits. Then she hears it, the faint creak of metal on metal followed shortly thereafter by a thud, and she knows...he is here. Still Dawn does not move. He is here and her heart races. The back of her neck prickles and she knows he is getting closer. At last, she dares turn her head to look. He notices her and smiles. "Good morning, Dawn," he says in that deep bass voice, sending a different kind of shiver down her spine. "It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day." "Yes, I think it is," replies Dawn, trying to sound more like a woman than the teenage girl she is. "The blues were hitting real good yesterday," he says, tilting his head towards the increasingly more restless ocean. "I'm hoping the tide brings them in again today." "I hope so, too," Dawn says. "I hope you catch a whole mess of fish." "Me, too," he replies. "I'll see you around." He tugs on the handle of his fishing cart and heads towards his favorite fishing spot. Dawn watches him go. The spray from a crashing wave sent in by the rising tide fogs her glasses and distorts his image. Her lips catch on the bands of her braces as they bend into a frown. "I'm fifteen today and he didn't even notice I'm not a little girl any more." With that frustrating thought on her mind, Dawn rises.