Accidental good fortune

He wasn't sure what dragged from that happy place, the one he often went to when sipping hot coffee in a cafe. His happy place setting is a million miles away from this cold and dreary town, in a warmer climate that seems brighter and more vivid than real life. He recalls reclining on a deck chair, its warm plastic straps hugging around his tanned frame. He's on a beach in South East Asia, cocktail in hand, watching the impossibly blue sky change colours as it prepares to settle into deep, velvety blackness. The sand is warm in his toes and the many people are dressed in brightly coloured clothing, laughing and happy. He was happy. He was too young then to realise that his life was unimportant and unexciting, and that it would drag out monotonously in front of him for years.

Never-the-less, he was drawn away from this reverie. He sat in a dim coffee shop with a cup in front of him, emitting steam in gentle waves. The people here were nondescript, the store itself lacklustre and washed out. In this drab landscape, a little girl, maybe 3, maybe 7- kids all looked the same to him, sat at a table to the left of him. She was dressed in an elaborate frilly white dress, the style that only little girls and brides got away with. Her cinnamon coloured hair was complexly entwined with a pink ribbon. She stood out from the grey that seemed to hang heavily in the room.

This little girl- was she was important somehow? She had pulled him back into the present, and he didn't know why. He watched her as he sipped his coffee. She looked around her furtively, not making eye contact with anyone, looking out of place and hesitant. Her hands were resting on the table in front of her, carefully still. The girls' mother, a strikingly tall lady in a long green dress, was trying to hand the girl a pink ice cream in a cone. The girl was looking at her now, her gaze fixed and strong, seemingly too unsure of the woman to take it. The woman tossed her honey blonde hair over her shoulder impatiently. The little girl took the hint, and took the ice cream.

He was sure the girl wasn't familiar, but neither did she seem like a complete stranger. He sighed and dismissed this feeling and the little girl from his mind. He tipped the remaining drops of liquid into his mouth and stood up to leave. He didn't look forward to his daily trudge to work.

**

Dusk had fallen, and the cold evening breeze flicked his clothes around him flippantly on his walk home. Inside his small apartment, he turned on the TV to drown out the overwhelming silence of his home. The feature of his lounge was a large oil painting he had purchased on holidays of an orange sunset with a red beach umbrella featuring prominently. The news droned on with bad news story after bad news story. One story piqued his interest, and he felt like a Tetris game where the last piece had fallen into place. He felt that prickly, almost uncomfortable, feeling of excitement spread in his head, making his heart beat faster and his hands tremble.

That her! His mind screamed as a picture of a small girl was shown on the TV screen. A little girl with cinnamon coloured hair tied in ribbons. It was her. She was missing, had been missing for weeks, apparently. Presumed taken from a taken at least 2 hours drive from here. That girls' luck was in, because he saw her. He picked up his phone and dialed the helpline number.

**

Late that night, after his conversation with a man from the police station- he couldn't recall who, his excitement to tell his story blurred out details like that- he tried to sleep. The girls' name was Gracie, that much he recalled. The man was a detective- he recalled that too. The adrenaline that had kept him awake and pacing across the thin carpet most of the evening had started to wear off. He started to think of the whole scenario again, with more introspection.

Was it really the same girl? He had seemed so sure, but he hadn't really gotten a good look at her face at the coffee shop, had he? He couldn't even really tell how old she was at the time... And how did she end up so far away from where she was taken? And why would her kidnapper take her out for ice-cream in such a public place? Was it really her? Was he really that sure?

These questions plagued his sleep, replacing the electric feel of excitement was an equally uncontrollable but decidedly heavier emotion, anxiety. Had he started a bootless errand?

**

The next morning at work, instead of telling his co-workers about his exciting find, he kept a quiet eye on news updates about the girl. None came.

Lunch time came, he grabbed his coffee cup and packed lunch and headed to the break room with the rest of the herd. That's when the phone call came.

“Hello, this is Detective Benjamin Maris. Am I speaking with the man who provided a tip about a young girl yesterday?”

His heart started beating frantically- was he in trouble for providing a false tip? “Y-yes, that's me,” he stuttered. “How can I help you, Benjamin?” He asked, as if he wasn't already aware of the trouble he was in.

“I just wanted to let you know what came from your tip. We located the little girl- it wasn't Gracie, the missing girl you saw on T.V.”

His heart sank. Apparently there was still a small part of him that was hopeful it was the same girl. He started to apologise for wasting the detectives' time, but Benjamin interrupted.

“But there's a twist. The little girl you saw, the one you reported to us. Her name is Jemima. She has been missing for 18 months. The lady you saw her with, she has been trying to integrate Jemima into her family by claiming the little was her niece whose mother had died. The family are very grateful for your part in finding the girl. Also, there are a number of reporters who wish to interview you. I haven't told them where you live, obviously. But with your consent, I can organise a statement that you can share with them.”

Silence on the other end of the line- he couldn't get the story straight in his head. He didn't know what to say.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes, I'm here. Wow, that was a real piece of luck then, wasn't it? A real piece of luck." He paused and considered the information further. "You know what? I'd love to speak with the reporters myself," he said. Maybe life still had a spark left in it yet.