Chapter 3: Vik's Mirror

Vik's beach became the scene of my agony. It is a beautiful place, but of a cold, almost cruel beauty. The deep blue of the sky and the immensity of the Norwegian sea contrast violently with the absolute darkness that I carry in my chest. Every step I take on this wet sand is physical torture. Every footstep is a reminder of my misfortune. Every meter advanced is a physical tear that I shed, that I am shedding right now, and that I know I will shed in the days to come.

I came here with only one fixed goal: to bury my pain in this corner of the world. How many days will it take me to achieve this? I don't know. But I hold on to the faith that my mind will heal at some point.

The first week passed in a haze of tears. He ate just enough, just a few slices of bread and some fruit so that his stomach would not growle; I slept only enough to extinguish my thoughts, and spent the rest of the hours walking aimlessly along the shore, letting the icy wind numb my face until I lost feeling.

Until one day it happened. A subtle change, tiny as a grain of sand, but I saw it.

For the first time in months, I didn't feel the urge to cry when I opened my eyes. I prepared my thermos with my beloved hot coffee, took a clean towel and took a book out of the suitcase. I went down to the beach, spread the towel on the sand, and stretched out completely in the pale northern sun. I opened the book and began to read. I took a sip of the coffee, feeling the heat run down my throat. I didn't think about Anthony today. Today I did not remember the betrayal. Today, for a few blessed minutes, I enjoyed the flavor, the wind and the reading.

Then, looking up from the paper, I spotted it.

At a considerable distance, far enough away not to invade my space but close enough to make out their movements, was a man. I calculated that he was the same age as me. His hair was tousled by the wind and he was doing exactly the same as me: he had a thermos by his side, a book in his hands and his gaze fixed on the waves.

There was nothing extraordinary about his presence, he was just another tourist or a local, but for me it was a flutter in the chest. I stared at him and, for the first time in a long time, I was not envious of the happiness of others. On the contrary. I saw myself reflected in his hunched posture, in his lost gaze, in his need to seek the isolation of this cold beach. From a distance, I felt that he was also holding a thermos to warm a body frozen inside, and that he was keeping a book to quiet a mind that did not stop screaming. I reflected myself in him. In his solitude I found a mirror of mine, and for the first time, Vik's beach didn't feel so painfully empty.