RAY TYNDALL
I wrote a few pieces in my twenties. Now, twenty years later, I have decided to try again.
THE SHORT END
Tom was looking at the rippled reflection of the moon and listening to the waves lapping on the sand when the moon above him shrank to a quarter of its size and its reflection in the water almost disappeared. The beach became suddenly dark. They both turned their heads to the lights of the hotel, which was further and higher up the beach road.
"What happened to the moon?" asked Helen.
"It's up there."
"That's not it, it must have gone behind the clouds."
"I know what I saw. The moon... it just winked out, down to the size of that thing..."
"I don't think so."
"Then what's that? It's too big to be a star." Helen went quiet for a while.
"Let's go." She pulled at his arm. They turned and trudged across the sand back to the road in silence. As they walked up the steep hill to the Cliff Hotel, Tom kept stopping to look up at the starlit sky and the small glowing globe, which was not quite circular in shape.
"It's just a trick of the light," Helen called down the hill. She had stopped momentarily to catch her breath. "Probably something that happens in these parts, a trick of the moonlight." Tom knew better than to argue, especially late in the evening like this. When they got to their room, he tried to resist the temptation to switch the TV on, but it was no use.
"Oh, please," Helen whined. "I just want to see if there's a news flash or something."
The satellite channels were out, so Tom tried the other channels. He stood before the open window fiddling with the TV.
"Anything?"
He was just about to reply, "Nothing yet," when half a ton of seawater threw him to the floor and all the lights went out.
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