A Watery Grave

He lived by the seaside, in fact he loved living by the seaside, but certainly not for just the ‘side’ side of the seaside! He felt the sea was a constant companion, a tutelary force, a system of friendly waves and not so friendly waves.  Not that he had any physical contact with the sea itself. He did not even walk on the beach.  But he tried to visit sights within sight of the sea each day on his morning constitutional.  He had been brought up by the sea when a small child. Perhaps, now he turned 60, that explained why the sea was such a magnet, recently drawing him back to these parts after a career lifetime away inland.  A big all-purpose magnet that attracted in an unfocused way across the bleak workaday lands that intervened between him and it.  Now a smaller magnet, perhaps, since it only needed to attract from around the corner where he lived in a bungalow, if not within direct sight of the sea, certainly within whiff and smell of it - and, on certain windy days, within sound of it.

That was real.  Now for the fiction:

Except there was no fiction, was there?  It was all real. It smelt real, it looked real, it sounded real - but did it feel real, did it taste real?  He was sure, before he finished this story, he’d walk down the beach for the first and final time to complete the circle of senses with regard to the sea.