Meeting Abigal
I invent stories all the time...
I saw a house on my walk and for some reason it struck me…. I imagined who lived in such a beautiful place? What was their story…
It was a vibrant, stubborn turquoise, standing on the gravel with the defiant grace of a wildflower in a desert. I stopped, my boots sinking slightly into the sand, and let the house pull a story out of me.
In the quiet theater of my mind, I saw the woman who lived there. Her name was Abigail.
I imagined Abigail was a woman who had spent half her life in a city of gray stone and iron, a place where clocks were the only things that spoke. She had been a restorer of old paintings, someone who spent her days bringing color back to things the world had forgotten. One day, she looked at her own life and realized the pigment had faded to a dull, dusty beige. So, she packed a single suitcase with nothing but primary colors and came here.
I saw her in my mind’s eye, moving through those sun-drenched rooms. She would be a woman who didn't believe in curtains, because she felt the stars deserved a front-row seat to her life. I imagined her kitchen filled with jars of sea glass she had sorted by hue—cobalt, emerald, and the rare, frosted white of a wave’s crest.
Abigail, I decided, was a woman who collected the "unwanted." She would have a chair with a wobbly leg that she loved specifically for its character, and a clock that was always ten minutes slow because she liked the idea of having a little more time than everyone else. She lived in a state of beautiful, intentional waiting—waiting for the wind to change, waiting for the perfect light to hit a canvas, waiting for a heart that could speak her particular language of silence.
The turquoise paint wasn't just a choice; it was her armor. It was her way of saying to the vast, crashing ocean, "I am just as bright as you are." I felt a sudden, sharp ache in my chest for this imaginary Abigail—for her brave solitude and the way she probably danced alone on that wooden deck when the moon was full, her only audience the rustling palms.
I moved closer, drawn by the gravity of the life I had invented. I stepped off the boardwalk, the white gravel crunching under my feet like a rhythmic applause.
Suddenly, the glass doors on the lower level slid open with a soft, sighing sound.
A woman stepped out into the light.
She was wearing a dress the color of sun-bleached coral, and her hair was tied back with a simple piece of twine. Her eyes were bright and sharp, the color of deep water just before a storm. She looked at me, and her expression wasn't one of surprise, but of a quiet, settled recognition.
"The tide is coming in late today," she said, her voice sounding like the low, warm hum of a cello. "And you’ve been standing there for five minutes looking like a man who just realized he’s walked into the middle of someone else’s dream."
I felt the blood rush to my face. "I... I'm so sorry. I was just... admiring the house. It's so full of life."
"It’s full of a lot of things," she said, leaning against the wooden frame of the door. "Mostly memories that I haven't quite finished sorting yet." She stepped forward, the sun catching the silver of a small ring on her hand. "I’m Abigail."
The name hit me like the spray of a cold wave. I felt the breath leave my lungs. "Abigail?" I whispered.
"In the flesh and the salt," she said with a soft, knowing laugh. "And you look like you’ve traveled a very long way just to stand on my porch. Would you like to come in? I’ve just finished sorting the sea glass, and I think I have enough cobalt left to tell you a story."
I stood there, the turquoise walls rising up around me like a sanctuary, realizing that the Abigail I had dreamed of wasn't a phantom at all. She was the one who had been dreaming of a traveler who would finally stop and notice the color of her soul. I took a step forward, and as I crossed the threshold, the gray world behind me simply ceased to exist.
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