My Dear Fiona - Chapter 2 - Alone in Kirkwall

I used to see this sea wall in my dreams. You can’t imagine how weird it feels to look at it in real life! I’m not really sure I’m awake right now, Fiona. There is an elusive threshold of weirdness and serendipity past which we stop believing anything is real, a madness of sorts, a sweet, addictive madness.

Ever since I was awarded this research grant to explore your life and times, I'm in disbelief, constantly questioning what I'm seeing in this taffy-like reality that shifts and changes its colors with the slightest tug.

I half expect to see you on that wall, as I did so many times in my mind, with the wind playing with your hair and your sights set far away, while you silently call on the mist.

My parents thought me irresponsible for picking anthropology as a field of study, not easy to make a living at studying dead strangers from a thousand years ago, and this last research project really set them off, because, as they said, just like a soft cow pile, the last thing I needed was another bucket of water.