Free Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! by Douglas Lindsay Page A

waves had splashed against my face. I'd jumped up.
    Breathless, desperately breathless. Struggling to get air. Panicking. Spinning around and around. Frantic. Trying to work out what had happened. What had happened?
    The gulls were overhead, crying out. As I staggered I became aware of the sea, the waves, the huge expanse of beach. In the distance there were people. It was warm. Why was it warm? It was December. How did I know it was December? It had been December ten seconds ago, but then ten seconds ago I'd been on a plane.
    I thought of the plane. The crashing plane. The impact. The start of the impact. The fear of it grabbed harshly at my stomach. But then I wasn't on the plane.
    I stopped spinning, stopped moving around in a jumbled attempt to find my bearings. I stopped. Stopped still. Tried to control my breathing.
    My clothes were wet, my muscles were starting to come down off the desperate, feverish tension. Breathing. That was the important thing. Steady breaths. Steady.
    I took a slow look around. I was on the far end of the beach. Away from the tourists and dog walkers. The nearest people were a good hundred yards away. There was a light breeze. The tide was about midway, too early to tell which way it was heading. Across the Moray Firth the hills of the Black Isle were green and clear in the sunlight. There was a large tanker at the entrance to the Cromarty Firth.
    The tide, as it always does at Nairn, had created one of the ever-changing sandbanks some distance out into the sea, and there was something there. A seal perhaps, or a cormorant with its wings outstretched, drying out in the sun. Too far away to tell.
    So I was on Nairn beach, our happy place, the place where Baggins and Brin had decided I should go during a bumpy plane ride.
    Another sharp breath, and I tried to control it before it got out of hand. I looked around again, another long, slow gaze at the beach and the sea and the hills. The sea touched my feet and I realised I wasn't wearing any shoes. I'd taken them off on the plane.
    I looked down. Wearing the same clothes. Quickly I dabbed at my pockets. Money, keys, credit card, where they always were. And phone.
    I took it out and switched it on. My phone. I could phone someone. Phone Brin. Then I'd know this was real. But how could it be real?
    The phone wouldn't turn on, but I stood there pressing the little red button for over a minute.
    Phone back in pocket, another deep breath. A couple of women walking a dog were getting closer. I looked down at myself again. I felt like I shouldn't be there, like I was standing naked in public. But there was nothing to see, nothing different about me.
    Why wasn't I on the plane?
    As the dog walkers approached I bent down and quickly removed my socks, stuffed them together in my hand. I stepped away from the gentle incoming waves so that my trousers wouldn't get any wetter.
    'Morning,' said one of them. The other smiled.
    'Have you got the time?' I asked.
    Check of the watch. 'Just after eleven,' she said.
    I smiled and nodded a thank you. They started to walk past.
    'Sorry, don't mean to sound weird. Could you tell me the date?'
    She hesitated.
    'It's the seventeenth of June,' said the other.
    Weirdly that seemed right. At least, within the bizarre narrative in which I found myself. I had somehow been transported from the crashing plane to the beach in Nairn. That, in itself, seemed utterly bizarre. However, within that, I had been imagining being at the beach in June, not December, so having made the leap – in time and space? – it made sense.
    'Thank you,' I said to their backs, as they walked off, their golden retriever skipping in and out of the sea.
    Time and space. That made me think. Which June? I looked around. Was there any kind of clue to be had from the beach? The only readily distinguishable changing features were the sand banks, but I couldn't tell the difference from year to year. I could just tell that it never quite looked the same.
    I