Today, we scattered the ashes of my uncle on his favourite beach. I will miss him but even so know that he has, at long last, found peace. This prompt is inspired by today. My way of asking you to tell me the story of what comes next.

There once was a man who all his life seemed to be in one battle after another – ever at odds and rarely at peace. He was a man of deep insights with a gentle but sad nature. A man to whom fate had dealt an unkind hand.

The man liked to walk on the beach and collect fossils and interesting stones. He had friends he liked to drink with and forget about life for a few hours.

The man had many things to be sad over but these did not break him. No, that was the work of the illness. The illness slowly filled his body until every waking moment was torture and pain. Finally, the man sought an escape from his hell in death.

His family scatter his ashes on the beach the man loved so much to take walks along. The ashes fell at the nexus between wave and shore. A space of magic and possibility. The man’s friends and family say their goodbyes. He wished them happiness even as he becomes one with the waves and the wind.

He was finally at peace. The pain was no more. Any thoughts of his life were only the memory of a dream. Yet, the man discovered that his time was not up yet. He had years left. Those years were still his.

With time still left, he lived on as an element of the seaside. He mostly rested at the place where the waves break. Sometimes he gives a gentle but helpful nudge to those who walk his beach putting them on a better path. He likes it when children leave him sandcastles to explore.

This is the beginning.