When Sandy met the fishmonger she had long given up on humanity. She lived in cottage in the highlands, writing stories and painting the mountains and trees and squirrels. When she needed anything she went on an hour walk to a little village by the nice loch. The village has a charming café, she thought sometimes.

But that day she had decided to get lost, for it was truly a fine day to do just that. The wind blowing in her silvered hair, Sandy trudged into Later she was wandering around a sweet village that she didn’t know the name of. The water beside the houses was salt water, she was told, so the fish trade wasn’t half bad.

Sandy dropped onto a picnic-blanket cloaked rock which had a beautiful view of almost everything, then tucked into her cucumber and humus sandwiches. The blanket she sat on used to have an intricate pattern sewn into it but years of paint splattered the earthy colours of her seat.

Reaching into her age-old backpack, she fished out a sketchbook of beautiful canvas paper and some bright paints. She set them out in front of her, and spent seconds adjusting the position of her equipment.

“Perfect!” she muttered to her self. Over the fifty years Sandy had spent with minimal human contact, she had unknowingly become a very softly spoken person with hearing good for birdie gossip and branch creaks.

“Miserable weather we’re having, eh?” said a gruff voice that startled her with a short bark of laughter. She hurriedly looked around in anger and then fright for whoever had disturbed her content.

Her eyes fell on a stocky man that resembled either a bear or a sea lion and was clothed in a random amount of colour. His beard was brown stroked with age and his ears were covered by a woollen hat dirtied by moths, mud and salt water.

He stood on a fishing boat, holding a bluish net cloaked in spinach-like seaweed.

Sandy didn’t speak and ate her sandwich, eyes slightly wide at the disturbance. He snorted.

“Not much of a talker lass?”

“I’m older than you.” Sandy replied, shocked at her ability to speak to a stranger.

“You don’t look it, lass. What, forty years, give or take?”

“Sixty” said Sandy sadly, twirling her paintbrush.

“Fifty-eight,” he exchanged.

Sandy grunted, too quiet to hear. She soaked the brush hairs into some yellow paint and began to stroke the paper.

“What’re you doin, lass?” asked he after a short moment.

“Being quiet.” Sandy half whispered.

“Eh?”

“Quiet.”

Sandy heard the man laugh then she didn’t hear him. She looked up to see if he had abandoned her and saw him working at his fishing instead.

——

Sandy looked fondly at the finished painting in the frame and then smiled at the wedding picture next to it. They married years after their meeting and it was a happy wedding. Sandy was no longer alone with the birds.