The Sixty-Eight Steps.

There are sixty-eight steps from the road to the beach, a blue handrail alongside most of them.

A sign states that pebbles should neither be picked up nor stacked.

He ignores this and slips three into his pocket, each one smooth and round, tempered by the rolling sea in which he bathes.

The water is cold, his body tingles when he stands after on the sand.

In the distant, coloured houses fringe the bay.

Yellow.

Rose.

Blue.

Sixty-eight steps back to the road and across the grass to the house where people are still sleeping.

He sets the three pebbles on the desk next to the drift wood, and begins to write.