Predecessors to Colossal Fortuity,

Maybe I only exist for disasters, maybe I’m the man to call. It was once said that when everything is fine, I am unhappy, but when crisis strikes, I’m the one who stays calm. ‘Calm down’ seems to have become one of my most used phrases. I was never blessed with much common sense but I’ve grown to be a bastion of problem-solving.

Nevertheless, so much emotional energy must be expended lurching from one disaster to another than I have become drained from it all.

I sought some peace. I ventured out for a walk and upon reaching the focal point of the journey, I perched myself on a rock above the beach for a rest before returning. I considered the landscape for a few moments, I had taken a photograph of this horizon many times and I examined the differences that were now before me.

I was pondering only a few moments when a dog wandered by. The dog was not accompanied by an owner so I thought it odd. The dog seemed to lack direction, and that instinctive goal dogs seemingly expound, as it moved amongst the marram grass. It worried me that someone had lost their dog; someone would have to tell their children or partner that the family pet was gone.

Still on the rock, I surveyed the beach, the coastal path and the golf course for an equally lost owner. No one struck me as lacking a dog. At the edge of the golf course, 200 yards to my east, a man waded through the long grass; a luckless golfer who had struck a wayward drive or a man seeking a dog. I waved at him. He saw me but chose to ignore me. I waved at him again and he gave a friendly wave back before going back into the gorse and gory grass. I looked around once more and decided that there were no other candidates to take this dog home but him. The dog was now around 100 yards to my west.

I followed the dog and, surprisingly, I was able to bring it under my command. I began leading the dog towards the man in the rough. This was where I became really worried; if the man was not its owner, I think I would now be. I did not want a dog, I don’t like pets. I waved again at the man and, thankfully, he seemed to understand and began walking towards me.  I lead the dog over the bridge and through the dunes to him, I pointed and it ran towards its owner.

I was relieved but the episode left me deliberating what other people I knew would’ve done. Unfortunately, I think most of those I encounter on a daily basis would’ve let that man go home to tell his family that he had lost the family dog. I was not a hero, in fact, I’d have rather stayed on the rock; what I did was cost the man thousands of pounds more in dog food and veterinary bills; and I acknowledge that there are many more catastrophic situations than this, but on that day – coincidentally, my birthday – that was the disaster of the day.