A Stray Lands on a Distant Shore

His rowboat came the beach that was the shore of Western Europe, and he'd been awake for several hours, clear-eyed and fully conscious. He exits the boat with his small bag of supplies and takes a few steps into the sand and looks ahead to the treeline of the forest before him. 
Sounds of woodland creatures and colorful birds call out the activity of their routines. He listens and the beauty rustles in his soul. It is the sound of someone who never was and never will be an addict. A person walking towards their confidence from day one. Yet within this introspection is a peculiar sense of dread. The young man listens with certain ears to an uncertain future. A time telegraphed by failure and insecurity and bitterness. A time whose notions had and took advantage of everything that ruined them. So, being who he is, he moves towards the treeline and enters its luscious bounty. The sounds of the birds and the creatures grow slightly more audible and then quickly fade to elsewheres. And as they do the young man continues walking, reaching an exit half-identical to the entrance, and when he has crossed that threshold and comes out on the other side, a valley is seen below and in it are dozens of stray, feral dogs, running with each other in pursuit of some invisible goal, running and howling and barking and leaping and dancing with the fugitive beauty of the universe. 
And the young man can be sustained by gratitude alone. 

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