Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

It's him - Le debut de l'histoire

Next to him, things became beautiful.

That day, he said he was about to show me a nice place that I had never been. I welcomed the idea, in fact appreciated another surprise. He kept driving, finally arriving at Arcachon, a very beautiful place at the western coast of France. It was a nice day in Spring. Even walking along the beach was already very enjoying. Light breeze came over on our faces, with sunlight shining over the beach, the sea and us just comfortably. With him next to me, those moments were wonderful. However, this wasn't the place he wanted to show. Instead, he took me to a place nearby, a place which I will never forget in my life...

Dune de Pyla. It was my first time there, and first time seeing a dune. Amazingly beautiful. It looked like a huge mountain made of sand, all of it in fair colour, very fine and soft. Everytime I tried to hold a bit into my palm, it slipped away softly and smoothly. We tried walking up to the top of the dune, step by step, slowly. Each step was slippery. We realised it was easier to walk bare foot. We took off our runners, holding the shoes with one hand. I tried to balance myself with the other. I followed him step by step from behind. He turned suddenly and kindly offered me his hand. I put mine into his. It was the first time we were holding hands. His hand was big, with sizeable fingers as well, maybe just when comparing to mine. Mine was perhaps too small for him. But at that instant, I felt safe and protected. He was leading me to walk up. I felt my heart was beating fast, so was my palm. So was his palm as well. Though I could only see his back, I could feel some unnatural and shy movements of his fingers.

We reached the top. In front of us, it was an ocean. It was beautiful. We found a place and sat down, enjoying the scenary on the top of dune. There were a couple of tourists around us. We lied down on the dune side by side. My head lied on my runners as pillow. We talked and made fun of each other. There were some instances where the sun became too strong. He would turn and lie with one arm up holding his head, such that he was facing me and his posture managed to block part of the strong sunlight. Then it was my turn. We laughed at each other that we were like an umbrella to each other. In our hearts, we knew it didn't mean a tool to block the sun or the rain. It was the protection, care and love for each other.

That day, it turned out to be one of the most memorable day of my life, a day on which our story began. It was 19 March 2005.

However, there is another secret that I have kept to myself. After the trip, I did something stupid in the eyes of most people. I contacted two umbrella manufacturers, asking them to make a private umbrella as a special gift with our photo and few words "It's My Umbrella .....Dune de Pyla, Archachon" imprinted on it. They kindly refused because of the insufficient quantity to be produced. I was aware that the idea would sound weird and impractical, but I would still like to try because, if I managed, I believed that it would be the most beautiful souvenir for us, ever.

Unfortunately, he will never get to know this secret.

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