A pinkish-orange glow decorated the distant horizon where ocean met early morning sky. That carpet of color would soon become the rising sun, and his northerly journey would have to commence not long afterwards. The cool dawn's gentle breeze slapped the loose legs of his sweat pants and chilled his bare chest as he stood trance-like on the wet sand where they had walked hand-in-hand in the early winter moonlight a mere twelve hours earlier. The night's tide had long since erased the two pairs of footprints that at first had appeared in tandem, then broke away--the larger feet chasing the smaller ones back to the patio of her beach-front condo.
If anyone would have told Lance Phillips a week ago when Pittsburgh's first winter storm hit that he would be standing on a mid-Atlantic beach today, he would've howled with choking laughter. But a week ago, Lance Phillips hadn't know that She was due to enter his life. A week ago, She hadn't known, either.
Shivering only slightly, the cool sand and ebbing wave oozing between his toes, he walked farther down the beach toward the spot where she had lain the wool Tartan-plaid blanket on which they sat, mostly in silence with her head against his shoulder, just star gazing.
"What are you thinking?" she had asked, almost whispering.
"Huh?" he said, startled briefly, as he returned from wherever his mind had taken him through the galaxies of stars.
"You look like you're a million miles away!" She scooted herself around in front of his drawn-up legs. She sat cross-legged, resting her chin on his crossed arms where he held his knees together and caressed both his bent legs behind the shins. She stared at him with a warmth that made the cool night air around them disappear.
"Oh, I was just feeling sorry for any man who isn't me tonight," Lance had said, sliding his arms out from under her smile. He cradled her cheeks with each hand, then leaned in and quickly, but softly, kissed the tip of her nose.
Not entirely startled, she had squeaked another of her cute little giggles, then took his hands and held them close to her face again. Their fingers finally interlocked and he squeezed hers with his in the 'grip-grip-grip' code that he had taught her.
"Whatever do you mean, my Pennsylvania Poet?" she had cooed.
Kissing her fingers then, and the backs of both her hands, one after another, he had told her: "It's just that any men who aren't like me tonight must surely be miserable. And I surely do pity them!"
A lonely sea gull swooped mere yards in front of Lance's down-turned stare, shaking him from his morning dream-like stroll. The big toe on his right foot missed the bird's milky deposit by only a few millimeters. He turned around to see that he had left a fresh trail of footprints nearly a hundred yards long. Better head back, he thought, or I'll end up in Hilton Head.
Walking more quickly retracing his path, he felt a sudden faintness; almost dizzy, but no where near a black-out, even though he had never in his nearly forty-nine years had a black-out. He often had these sensations, as a diabetic might have when the sugar count goes down, but he was not diabetic. And being in perfect health, he was not prone to even petite-mal seizures like someone prone to high blood pressure might be. He recognized the sensation without concern... even welcomed it.
