The Grand Finale
A coastal walk turns out all wrong.
“What’s that in the east?”
“Where? Oh, there. That should not be happening.”
“No, you’re right.”
The two hikers stare at the shimmering green glow spreading an aurora borealis-like light show. Awe and horror take turns to strike their faces. Speechless, their eyes transfixed by the bulge of the toxic neon green sphere as it breaks free from the farthest point of the Firth of Forth. Its hue clashes with the eerie calm of the widening fjord as it opens out to the North Sea.
Jonathan and Claire’s boots remain bolted to the coastal path between Kirkcaldy and Kinghorn. Jono reaches for his girlfriend’s hand and clasps it in his builder’s bear claw. As though caught in an alien tractor beam, a phenomenon they never imaged could happen clutches them.
“Let’s have a cuppa. Get the shooting sticks out, love.”
“Huh?” Jono says.
Bewildered, then he rallies. “Right love, a grand idea.”
The forty-three-year-old slides the metal spikes clear of their backpacks and stabs their pointy ends into a softish grassy patch on the far border of the narrow footpath. Flanked by a metal fence to prevent people from wandering onto the railway tracks. Unused for a couple of decades…
