Life

The sea is as flat as a coin today, just like the one in my palm. This plain bronze penny has an edge like the curve of the horizon. How strange it is that my fate will be decided by the toss of a coin. The sea lapping at my ankles, soaking my socks and shoes, not that that will matter soon. The waves seem to be taunting me, laughing at my nerves, my cowardice. What sort of person relays on chance to decide the most important decision? Maybe someone who's whole life has been centered around coins, making them, spending them, gambling them. Never, ever keeping them.                                     It's not that I don't like the jingle in my pocket, in fact I probably like it too much, it gives me a sstrong feeling of power and control. The waves seem to have changed slightly, slowly calming themselves after last night's storm, regaining control over themselves. When I first ran down here, the dark of the early hours seemed to chase me, the dark seemed to know what I've done. But the feeling of the beach has altered, where once was anger and fear, now there is tiredness and hunger, hunger for the life I was had and tiredness because I don't want to keep running. You can't keep running into the sea, you'll be stopped, or you'll be swept back onto the sand. That's why I came here, or was forced to come here,  you can't just gamble away your family's fortune without finding the consequences blocking your path. I am reassured that I am trusting the coin and the sea, one so big, one so small, both so constant.                                               The sun is creeping up from its hiding place behind the sand dunes, illuminating the footsteps that brought me here. The apsalout terror that raged inside me is slowly subsiding into determination. I have to do this now, the longer I take the worst it will get, no one does a thing like this under the warmth and light of the sun. The copper is warm in my clammy hands. I ready the penny likes have done so many times before. Toss, catch,breath and look. Heads, Life. It has been decided. I touch the penny to my lips and slip it into my pocket. I take one more glance at the sea, not today. Not today. I take a step towards land, towards my new life. Then another and another, until I'm running suddenly full of the life I was just about to throw way.