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Counting Steps

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge

© Crispina Kemp

Every morning before the shops woke, Edith took the steps down to the beach at Lowestoft, one hand on the cold rail, counting under her breath the way she had for thirty years. Concrete, then gravel, then the give of sand beneath her boots.

The barriers stood like watchmen in the surf, their red marker faithful even in fog. She’d watched them lose planks winter after winter, watched the sea take a little more of the wall each year, patient as always.

Today the tide was out further than usual, the beachgrass bowing sideways in the wind. She stopped halfway down, breath fogging, and looked at the water the way you’d look at an old friend with many shared secrets.

“Next stop, brekkie at Jolly Sailors,” she said to no one.

Then she carried on down, because the beach didn’t care about her knees …. and neither did she.

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This is “Sea and Sand” by The Who

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #096

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