The Man On The Hill

One late September afternoon Lucy is out by the hill by the sea.

 She is walking her dog, Buster his name is, as she usually does at this time and place, and he is padding along by her side his pink tongue dangling from his mouth.  

They are walking on a stretch of grass, with only a few trees standing about, moving towards the hill overlooking the beach and sea below.

As Buster runs off towards a tree to go about his business Lucy checks her watch, and checks it again twice more, growing more and more impatient.

Lucy is in a hurry, as she often is. She has to meet her friend Max in the park on the other side of the hill and she hates being late. It had been Max’s idea to meet in the park. He has a dog himself and he thought her and Buster would make great friends.

Usually Lucy would walk Buster alone. She usually would do most things alone before, but now she did them with Max, and it felt good not to be alone all the time.

Lucy checks her watch again; she is late. Max would wait for her, though, he wouldn’t mind.

“No worries”, he would say and scratch Buster behind his ears.

As Lucy looks up she sees that Buster is no longer by the tree and she starts looking around for him. She looks up and suddenly sees a man standing on the top of the hill facing the sea.

She blinks. Lucy could have sworn the man had not been there a moment ago. He is wearing a yellow raincoat, though Lucy can't recall it having rained today.   

The man turns towards Lucy and raises his hand for a wave. Lucy looks over her shoulder; she is the only one there, so she raises her hand and waves back. The man stops waving. Now he beckons at her. Lucy looks around again; she is still the only one there.

Lucy had wanted to go around the hill. That is what she always does. It is faster, better when you are in a hurry.

She looks around; Buster is still nowhere to be seen and the man still beckons. Finally she starts walking towards him.

When Lucy is standing on the hill next to the man he just keeps looking out at the sea for a time and Lucy starts thinking that it might not have been her he had beckoned at.

Only then does he turn to face Lucy. He smiles at her like she is supposed to know him, as if they were old friends who had agreed to meet on the top of the hill.

“Beautiful isn’t it, the sea?”

He turns again and Lucy does the same. The sun is hanging low and showers the sky and the black, silent waves in a glow of gold and red. The man is quite right, it is beautiful.

 “Such wonder and mystery one finds in this world if one knows where to look”

Lucy doesn’t know what to answer to that, so she keeps silent. It doesn’t seem to matter to the man, though. He continues:

“Beauty can be found in the simplest things, wouldn’t you agree? Like an autumn sunset or a forest in spring or a friend when you are lonely”

Lucy looks the man straight in the eyes. They are very blue, she notices.

“One mustn’t be afraid to look”, the man goes on.

Lucy looks at her watch again; she is very late.

“I really should be going now”, she says.

The man turns to the sea again. He closes his eyes and smiles, knowingly.

At the bottom of the hill, on the other side, Buster sits waiting for Lucy his pink tongue still hanging from his mouth. She scratches him behind his ears before walking on towards the park, hoping Max is still there.

He is. Max is sitting on a bench with his dog Kiki by his feet. The bench is facing the hill.

Max stands up when Lucy is closer.

“Sorry I’m late”, Lucy says.

“No worries”, Max says and scratches Buster behind his ears. Lucy smiles.

“I just went over the hill today, that’s all. Not around”

“So it was you on the hill, then? I thought I saw someone”

“Yes. There was a man there. He wanted to talk to me”

Max looks at her puzzled:

“What man?”