250 Words: Couple No 1: Couple at the coast

I see them every day and the same unanswered questions whirl about my head.  Why are they out there and what do they seek to achieve?  I come here to be alone: just me and the sound of the sea but why are they here out on that platform?  I know the answer is clear and obvious, the question futile- maybe infantile, even, like, Do they come alive at night?- yet I think it every day.

More pressing are my other questions.  If they are A Couple and not just a couple, then why do they stand apart?  Why do they not hold hands as I do when I’m here with my husband?  What has come between them to form the space in between them?  What do they say to one another, if indeed they are on speaking terms?  Sometimes I think I would give anything in order to be able to go and find out.  Alas, however, I cannot.  No matter how many days I come and sit on the sand, their secrets will never be given up to me.

Occasionally I think that perhaps, after all, they are just a couple of people, unconnected except by the platform they share, that I shouldn’t concern myself: they are just art at the end of the day.  But then I return and think- no- they are each still all the other has in the world- why shouldn’t they be more?  Why shouldn’t I question and hope that there is Hope?