h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Loneliness props all non-belief, Jim was thinking, as
couched against his pack after a tough climb, he stared
into the distance. Far below, the shore curved thirty
miles to the north-east. It was a blue-sky, golden day
without a soul in sight, the pitch-pine forest a patch-
work of green in the lee of the endless, rolling dunes.
This scene, whose beauty he once thought profound, was
now like his life, empty of meaning. He had no one to
share it with, his daily trips to the beach, only an
excuse to keep him going. He hoist the Yukon pack-frame
and took a path down through the pines. These trees,
twisted into eldritch shapes, had the fairy-tale look
of a forest lifted from the Brothers Grimm and though
protected by dunes on their seaward side, could grow no
higher than the wind-feathered, sandy crests.