Paola

It was a beautiful night, Paola was sitting on the darkest corner of that empty restaurant. The beach was right in front of her, she could feel the breeze gently touching her skin. It was warm, the air smelled like a combination of great food, sea water and goodness...

She couldn't believe ten days had passed since she found that place, the city was small, more like a village... no more than a couple thousand people lived there. Everyone knew everyone.

There was no cellphone tower, no internet connection, not even a landline... the place was no where to be found in her map. She thought it was weird, but maybe her 30 year old map was too outdated. The restaurant was the first one that she found and apparently the only one in the whole city... and there she was for the tenth consecutive night.

She was staying at this woman's house, Mrs. Collins, that also doubled as a bed and breakfast. Her room had a beautiful view of Linda's (as Mrs. Collins prefers to be called) garden, that was filled with the most beautiful flowers. Linda told her she collected all kinds of seeds from different parts of the world when she used to travel like Paola, before coming across that place and settling for good.

Everyone that Paola met seemed to have a past of travelling. Pierre, the milk man, was originally from Paris and settled there after travelling around Europe. Josh was american, and had a very successful business in Connecticut, than he took a year off to travel and settled there as a barber. As did Aadhya, the Indian young woman who baked the bread and Olivia, the Brazilian writer that lived down the street.

No person seemed to be originally from that place, and one day when Paola was helping Linda in the garden she asked the nice old lady about it, the answer came quickly: "Oh darling, when I got here I had so many questions, and little to no answer... so I just made one up. I think this is heaven, lost people come here for happiness, they never leave."

Joel showed up with Paola's order, the food smelled great and she congratulated the Filipino man once again... she started eating and the shrimp tasted great. The only thing that was going trough her mind was how Linda could be so right.

Paola doesn't even remember where she was before, or how she got there, but she was lost for a long time, and that looked a lot like paradise... She smiled thinking about it. Maybe she could stay for a while more, she really wanted to read that last chapter from Olivia's new romance, and Linda needed a lot of help with the garden...