Inspirations Home: The beginning

This i the beginning of something.. it's short and not finished...

Tan swept a stray lock of dark brown hair from her face only to have the wind put that same lock of hair back in its place. Tann frowned and cursed herself for not bringing a hat with her. Now her hair was at the mercy of the chaotic caprices of the winds as they rode off the beach.

Doing her best to keep her hair out of her face with one hand Tann walked toward the shoreline. With each step the thunderous sound of the crashing waves grew more present. Tann loved the sound of the waves crashing. It always reminded her of her father telling tales of his time at sea. She thought of her father now as she stood at the shoreline where the waves slowly rose in their eternal quest to catch the moon. He had been a big man, his hair the same thick dark brown as hers. She could hear his deep and wise voice rumbling at her from the sea.

Tann smiled and pretended she could see him out among the waves on one of his beloved ships. She held onto the fantasy for several moments before finally letting it go. Her father wasn’t out on the ocean, he was buried six feet under the ground the victim of a heart attack. It was that event that had brought the young woman to this beach.

The beach was known as inspirations home. This beach was the beach that all of father’s most fantastic voyages started. In those stories her father fought off pirates, rescued damsels in distress, and a great many other heroic deeds. While she always knew that the stories were false, she knew that inspirations home was a real place. After her father died she couldn’t think of any other place to be and now here she was.

Tann watched a pair of seagulls fight over the carcass of a fish while she fished into the pocket of her sweater. Her well-manicured hand felt the photo she already knew was there and she removed it from the confines of her pocket. The picture was of her father and a mermaid. Out of all the stories he told, the ones about the mermaid were her favorite. Those stories were much different than his stories of adventure on the high seas, his mermaid stories were about love.

Tann looked at the photo and while she knew the mermaid had to be fake, she couldn’t tell. Her father sat on the ground, his back against a long dead tree. Lying next to him, her head in his lap, was the most beautiful woman Tann had ever seen. However, unlike all the other women she had known in her life, this one had a fish tail starting at the bottom of her torso.
The first time Tann had seen the photo was exactly one week before her father had died. She had been home from college that weekend and was helping him move some old boxes out of the garage. As she brought one out of the garage one of the flaps flew open and the photo had come fluttering out. Curious, Tann had picked the photo up and got a look at it before her father uncharacteristically snatched it from her hand.