Racconto inviato | Submitted story 12

Racconto inviato | Submitted story 12

The Reader of Dún Laoghaire

Walking up the hill on a fine spring day. On my right a famous Tower, on the left my family facing the sea towards Howth. I looked around the beautiful view, the Irish Sea so blue, astonished at the sight of people lining up to jump in the cold water, while many seals were resting on rocks and children happily building sandcastles on the shore. Sailboats dancing with the breeze and magenta flowers colouring the streets. Joyful cheers, laughter and the sound of waves was the soundtrack of this exceptional morning. Everyone and everything trying to get the most out of a rare warm sunny day in Ireland.
I gazed in awe at this charming scene, until I got caught by another shot: a young man reading, alone, sitting on a rock uncovered by the tide and surrounded by some greenery. One hand on a green hardback book, the other holding his head. His brown straight hair softly moved by the wind and his eyes intently occupied. He looked about my age, maybe a couple years more. He sat there, only moving his hand to turn the pages.
The whole view looked like a painting, incredibly sublime.
At one point he looked up absentmindedly at the horizon, as if too focused on the story to have escaped his own. Everything was moving around him, yet it was as if everything was still. As if time never existed and all it mattered was written in his book. He had found the perfect place for getting away from everything. Since he was facing the sea, he didn’t even notice anyone looking at him, but I definitely wasn’t the only one who had been drawn by him. In fact, other people were starting to be curious about him, since he was by himself, solely in company of a book.
Engulfed in this idyllic picture, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was reading so attentively: “Joyce would fit”, I thought, since we were in front of the starting point of the Ulysses.
However, there was no way for me to ask him, because I could never go there and abruptly ruin the peace of such a perfect moment. Therefore, I stood there for a few minutes, completely captured by the beauty of the simplicity of this act: taking a book and reading it by the sea, something you unfortunately don’t see very often anymore.
While standing there I started thinking about how much I would love to do the same and to surround myself with nature, maybe sitting there next to the reader to keep him company.
After a minute more, it was time to head back home and leave him read his book.
From time to time, after almost two years, I still find myself thinking back to that moment, completely surprised by how much it struck me, still leaving me with curiosity.
Perhaps, I will never know what he was reading or who he was, but to me he’ll forever be the reader of Dún Laoghaire.