Our hearts are growing old

I had wandered onto the beach without realising where I was. The wind was loud and heavy, swirling into my face. I turned around quickly, anxious, thinking I had heard someone come up behind me, but it was a phantom. I looked up at the white houses that sat perched behind the cliff face, and felt colder. It was in the afternoon, and the time felt unfillable, as though I would never leave this beach. I let my weight tumble me down the sand banks, before slowing to an ambling pace towards the sea. The wind was whipping the sand at me, and my hair was collecting in the air. My feeling now was of the inevitability of my situation. I was free, and surely I had had a sense earlier of this accidental scenario happening, of the fate of my escape. The water was coming closer, my feet dampening from the wet sand, before the relief of the water colllecting around my toes. The sea receded. I stopped. I could walk along the beach, enjoy this sound for a little longer, but it would be too late by then. I would be found. I started to walk again. I tried to think of everything I had ever done, to collect it all around me, maybe it would help me float. The memories felt like arrows shooting into my chest as the water reached my waist, but I continued to accelerate the movement of my brain. They were flooding my head, but I couldn't stop. The water was at my neck. I tried to pull the arrows from my chest but as soon as I tried, another pierced my throat. Now I was struggling to stand, and soon the memories would collapse into me. I stuttered forward a few more steps and was gone.