No Peace For The Wicked

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The first old man died on the beach.

Unaware of his impending fate, he watched, huddled in a blanket, as gulls screamed over a plastic bottle bobbing in the choppy water, while under a heavy sky a tanker plodded up the Channel. Apart from him, the beach was deserted. It was too early in the season for day-trippers and too cold for beachcombers with their wretched metal detectors.

He wasn’t interested in seagulls or tankers. The birds were noisy and demanding, like people, and the tankers too remote. He had long ago given up interest in anything much, surrendering willingly to an ill-tempered isolation. Now all he had left was the creeping disease of old age, made bearable by the few bits of comfort a well-stocked bank account could buy. As long as the account received regular additions, that was all that concerned him.

A car approached along the promenade and he sank instinctively deeper into his deckchair, pulling the blanket tighter around him. If he’d wanted strangers stopping by for a chat he’d have hung out a sign.

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