Watched By A Stranger

She poured a glass of wine and went out to the garden with a magazine, trying to read but struggling to concentrate in the mid July heat.

After a while, she abandoned the magazine and stretched out on the grass, listening to the dull thud of the sea below, her eyelids heavy from the air and the repetitive rhythm of the water.

She found herself drifting, lost in a blur of tall grassy banks and sandy pathways with railings at the bottom.

Suddenly, she came to, cold all over.

She heard a sound. Someone was standing by the far tree at the garden fence, their face turned away.