He sits on the low stone wall, looking out. The colour has bled out of the landscape leaving dulled sand, sooty clouds, a murky sea. The air is thick with moisture and salt from the slap of breakers at the shoreline. A couple pick their way along the beach, bundled and doubled into morose sacks against the wind. He is motionless, impervious to the creeping cold.
He has stayed so long his feet have rusted and his limbs groan like tortured iron. His eyes are steel, greyed by the reflected sky and the churning water. There is no setting sun at the horizon, just the fog of the damp dusk meeting the sea. His insides have been hollowed out and scoured by the biting air. He is crowned by tangled weed and his face is streaked wet. There is a sodden scrap of paper balled up in his hand, the ink smudged and purpling.
The wind rushes and sighs and he echoes like a shell with the crash of the waves.
No comments:
Post a Comment