La, la, la, la-la;

Can you see-ee any clearer from a glass shore?

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm-hmm…

One line was all that came back to her. She stood on a fused beach with her arms folded, her boot heels scuffing the grainy, scratch-dulled surface, her gaze sweeping the flat horizons, and she half-whispered, half-sang that one remembered line.

It was the slack-water of the atmosphere, when the day winds blowing onto the land had died, and the night-breeze, delayed by a warmth-lidding overcast, had yet to be born from the inertia of archipelagic air.

Seaward, at the edge of a dark canopy of overhanging cloud, the sun was setting. Red-tinged waves fell towards the glass beach and surf frothed on the scoured slope, to be blown away along the curved blade of shore towards a distant line of dully glinting dunes. A smell of brine saturated the air; she breathed deeply, then started to walk along the beach.

She was a little above average height. Her trousered legs looked slim beneath her thin jacket; black hair spilled thick and heavy down her back. When she turned her head a little, the red light of the sunset made one side of her face look flushed. Her heavy, knee-length boots made rasping noises as she walked. And as she walked, she limped; a soft bias in her tread like weakness.

“… see-ee any clearer…” She sang softly to herself, pacing along the glass shore of Issier, wondering why she’d been summoned here, and why she had agreed to come.