Pretend friend
Children often have imaginary friends, but some just stay around in adulthood and never go away.
To any passer-by who saw him slowly walking along the shoreline, he was alone. With his hands in his pockets, and a downcast gaze, watching the water lap the beach, he was a solitary 37 year-old in a business suit, up to his ankles in water as he walked like the loneliest man on earth, the sea breeze ruffling his thinning hair and flapping his blazer. It was late evening, the time when the last person on a beach would be...
