280 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
280 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
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Underground eXperts United
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Presents...
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[ The Sea ] [ By Freon ]
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____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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The Sea
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by Freon
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Full moon tonight. The sky is clear and the world is bathed in a grey light;
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not the dry pale yellow light of day, but the liquid light of midnight that
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delicately paints the water of the bay with fine silver and tops Goat Fell
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with a shimmering frost. The land is orange, sliced by the jagged shards of
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illumination the sodium lights cast like a disinterested mockery of the
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moon's breath of light. Six hours before sunrise. It seems to me like I have
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six hours left to live.
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She's up ahead, still walking. She hasn't looked back yet. I could
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call after her, ask her to stop, but I won't - she'll keep walking, going
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away from me. Leaving me. I could catch up - she's walking briskly but it
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would be easy enough. But I walk in fits and starts, stopping now and then
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to tell myself I'm a fool to chase her, that I'm only making things worse.
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She hates me, but if I go back to the house - if I give her time, speak to
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her later, maybe she'll think again, think maybe she could come back to me,
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think of all the good times. But I can't take her with me.
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I stop under a streetlight and hear her shoes mock me as she keeps
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going, a steady 'tack-tack' on tar made metallic by the rains of the day and
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the mercury moonlight.
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Maybe she will forgive me. Maybe she'll think about us again, maybe
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she just needs to be alone. I'll speak to her in the morning. I won't beg, I
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won't cry at her, grovel and - she's getting away. She turns down a
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sidestreet and I panic and run, chasing her. It's all very well to stop and
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see sense, but only if I don't lose sight of where she's going.
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She's going to the bunker.
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I slow down to a walk but I can't stop again. Obviously, she'll go
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to the bunker where we slept last night. I round the corner and she's up
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ahead, quite far away. 'tack-tack-tack-tack.' She throws her hair over her
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shoulder with one hand and I see the ring gleam in the light. She brings her
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hand around in front of her and stops, her head lowered to look at it. I
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stop. She's a couple of hundred metres up ahead, and I'm sure I can hear her
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breathing - she's nearly crying. I start walking, planning to catch up with
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her, but when she starts walking, too, I slow down and resume my role as the
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floundering shadow.
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We're heading for the beach - or, well, she's heading for it, I'm
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just the mournful tail. Half a man, just a shadow - just a shadow, following
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its owner because it dies the moment it stops doing that. I feel sure some
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streetlight's going to cancel me out and I'll be out there in limbo, a dead
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shadow - but none of them do. I'm not dying, I'm just being left
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Alone. Like I'm going to leave her.
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Alone.
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I stop and watch her walking for a second. Walking away from me. The
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further away she gets the more acute the sensation gets - my fingertips
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tingle and my chest feels hollow, my eyes burn and I can feel the voices
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screaming in my head, the better half of me banging on the inside of my
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skull because he knew, HE knew all along I was going to mess this up...
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I walk again. I just want to do the right thing. Something's just
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scooped out all the sense in me and I can't put together a plan, can't
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scheme myself out of this. Can't find a way of interpreting this scenario
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and extending it so I get to go home with her tonight and hold her and never
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let her go. Where she'll forgive me and just forget this whole thing and we
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can be together again and I can take her out on the water. We'll lie in the
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boat and make love, caressed by moonlight and rocked by the gentle waves.
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But she keeps walking and my head keeps reeling. I'm starting to
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wonder why she's not heading for the bunker any more when I realise what's
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happening; she's going to the harbour, where we met.
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* * *
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I was hanging around, smoking and watching the seabirds cursing and wheeling
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in the sky. Summer time. I sat on the rocks waiting for the tide to come
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further up - as soon as it did, I'd head for the beach and pull out my boat.
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Go out from the shore a bit and just lie there and read, with just the soft
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slaps of the water against the hull for company. Heaven. She sat down beside
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me.
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"Hi," I said, surprised; I hadn't heard her approaching.
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She sat silently by my side, looking out to sea. I'd never seen her
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before. I tried to think of something to say - something like "Who the hell
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are you?" seemed to be the best I could produce. So we sat in silence. It
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was strangely comfortable, not a tense silence like you'd expect in the
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circumstances. After a while, she spoke.
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"Spend a lot of time here?" she asked. Her voice was clear and
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smooth, like cool spring water. I looked around to see her still gazing at
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the distant horizon.
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"Yes," I said. "I sit here when I've got nothing else to do. An
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hour, maybe two hours a day. Sometimes longer, if the weather's good." I
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remembered I should be introducing myself - offer my name, ask for hers, but
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somehow it wouldn't have fit. I expected her to think I was boring right
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from the start - a nameless fool who sits on rocks all day doing nothing.
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"I can see why," she said, and fell silent again, looking down at
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the water charging at the big red-orange rocks and falling back to regroup.
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Again and again.
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* * *
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She's walking faster now, so I speed up too. I can't lose her. I can't just
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lose her. She's turning off past the tourist information centre, still
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headed for the harbour. Reflexively, she looks both ways before she crosses,
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then takes a diagonal route across the crossroads and onto the road that
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leads up the hillside. Not the harbour, then - the cliffs. I follow. For
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some reason I look both ways, too - there's never any traffic here, even in
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the daytime, even at the height of the tourist season.
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I start walking too, keeping a hundred and fifty metres between us.
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Suddenly, she turns around and heads for the shore.
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* * *
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"Going out in my boat," I explained to her. I stood up and turned to face
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her. Would you like to come with me? I didn't say it, but I felt I should
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have. She held out her hand, face down. Her fingers were long and slim and
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regular; she had aristrocratic hands. In a few seconds, I figured out what
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to do. I took her hand and gently helped her to her feet. She weighed
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nothing at all.
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She followed through and suddenly her lips were on mine. I kissed
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her back, wondering what to do, then she extracted herself and looked up at
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me, eyes full of fun. I wanted to ask - what was that for? What's going on?
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Something about her little half-smile silenced me.
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She headed down the rocks, picking her way back towards the road. I
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followed. When she got to the broken tar, she turned around and smiled.
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"Where's your boat?" She was coming with me. I just felt it.
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"This way," I said, heading off along the rocky beach. She walked
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beside me, silent. A quarter of an hour passed and the rocks gave way to
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rounded pebbles, which gave way to sand. I waited while she took off her
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shoes and socks.
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"We got in from the mainland a couple weeks ago," I began. "I
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thought this place was hell. I wanted my clubs, my friends, the traffic.
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Here, it was always so damn quiet it freaked me out. You could just walk out
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the door and right into the road and you didn't get a honk. No cars.
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"Then I came down to the beach, but just because my parents made me.
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Said I should get to know the place. Get out of the house, away from the
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damn computer, the usual stuff. I was bored out of my skull so I dumped
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them and walked along the beach towards the harbour. I sat on those rocks
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for an hour and nobody spoke to me. I just looked at the water bunching up
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like a fist and smashing into the rock, then pulling back and going again.
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I looked out to sea and the horizon looked so close, the water looked so
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warm in the sun, twinkling like all the stars were in it. I got down from
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the rocks and walked the other way.
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"I got back to the sandy beach where I'd started, but my parents had
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gone so I headed on, further that way. The sand gave way to rocks which gave
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way to sand. A long way over there there are walls of basalt reaching out
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into the sea like giant arms. It gets really hot in the sun and when I got
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to them I just walked around on them barefoot, stepping off into the puddles
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of seawater now and then to cool my feet. There's this ridge of salt round
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each of the dips where the water collects.
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"After a while I carried on along the beach until the sun started
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setting and the twighlight made everything look unreal. I turned around to
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pick my way back and I saw a boat." We were still walking along the warm
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sand, the Atlantic slowly climbing up to consume the beach from the West.
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She didn't speak, so I continued.
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"It was just lying in the grass upside down, glossy green hull
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shining in the sunlight. I walked up to it to get a closer look, lifted it
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up and saw a piece of paper taped to the floor inside. I turned it over - it
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was more bulky and less heavy than it looked - and read the paper.
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"It said the boat belonged to the first person to come along and
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take it. The owner had just dumped it there for someone to pick up. So I
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did.
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"And I half walked, half crawled for a quarter of a mile. The boat
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was really too heavy for me to carry on my own. After a while, I realised I
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was being stupid and took it down to the water. I waded out with it for a
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while until it was afloat, made sure there were no leaks and struggled in.
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I pulled out the oars and set them up and took the boat out to sea a bit.
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I meant to just take it out two hundred yards or so then go along the coast
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but I just went out and out, seeing the coastline shrink and more and more
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of the island appear from both sides. It was beautiful. The most beautiful
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thing I'd ever seen." I stopped and looked at her, to see if she understood.
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She did. She didn't say anything, but she looked at me and I could
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see it in her eyes. She knew what I'd seen, and she knew what it had meant
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to me. Eyes that looked like they were almost moved to tears rested on my
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face for a moment then turned back forwards. We were there.
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We took the boat out and she just sat in front of me, facing away
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from me and back out to the shore, watching what I'd watched a week or so
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back while I rowed the boat out. It suddenly struck me.
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I was sitting where I'd sat all those days ago, watching something
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even more beautiful.
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* * *
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She cuts across the street and heads for the footpath along the coast to the
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South. She's sweeping her hair back again with one hand and pushing the
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little gate open with the other. It creaks forlornly and clicks shut behind
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her as she sets out along the path.
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I follow.
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* * *
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Eventually she turned around, settling into the back of the boat and smiling
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at me.
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"It is beautiful," she said. "I never thought of that island as
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beautiful, but I guess I never really looked at it before."
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"Nobody does," I agreed. "I didn't, either, until I saw it from my
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boat. There's something about hearing the water pat the wood that makes it
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better in a way." She dangled one hand over the back into the water. I kept
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rowing for a while until we were far enough out and pulled the oars in,
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laying them along the sides of the boat. Suddenly we were very alone
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together, an isolated island of life drifting in my beloved Atlantic.
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* * *
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I feel like my world is dying and falling apart as I step over roots,
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padding along the soft earth as the path writhes around the colourless
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ferns. She strides purposefully along, seeming to move faster on this rough
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ground than she did on the pavements of the town. The land is silent. The
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only sounds I can hear are the soft breathless noises her clothes make as
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she walks and the hissing of the ocean.
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I realise with a quick start that we're near where I kept my boat.
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She turns from the main path onto a narrower one that follows a little
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stream down to the sea. I follow fairly close behind her. We come to a
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little cottage with white walls and she stops by it. I stop too, but she
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doesn't start walking again. She just stands looking out to sea. I walk up
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to her; I'm just a metre or two behind her now and I can see what she's
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looking at out there. The sea is very close and dark, and in the distance
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the prickling lights of the fishing village seem shy and afraid.
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"I'm sorry," I croak, my throat closed up. For a long time she
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stands silently, then she sets off down the path again. I look at her back
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for a few moments, then set off after her.
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* * *
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"I love the sea," I said. She smiled and blushed a little. "I come out here
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and read sometimes, but mostly I just think. I think of how much I hate what
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I was like for all those years. How much I love to sit here and just rock on
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the swell, drifting and not caring where I end up, really. Because I'm home
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when I'm out here." She smiled again.
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"I love you too," she said. I wondered what she meant.
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* * *
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Suddenly she turns around, standing right on the spot where my boat used to
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stay. She looks at me and I see that she's full of a kind of futile rage.
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Like when you yell and slam doors and feel like you're going to hit someone,
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but you know inside you're really crying. We just stand there, a couple of
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metres apart on the sand, looking straight at each other. I wait for her to
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talk.
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For a while she doesn't, then -
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"Why?" she asks.
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"I don't know, I - we - my parents are going away back to the
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mainland, I have to go back with them." A tear rolls down her cheek.
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"You don't have to. You just don't love me," she says unreasonably.
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"You said you loved me."
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"I do love you," I say. "I'll keep in touch," I offer. She doesn't
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reply, but instead looks at me like I've said something incredibly stupid.
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Then she turns and walks towards the water.
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I follow her.
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"I do love you!" I call after her, as she melts into the breakers.
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"Not enough," says her voice, but she's completely vanished.
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"I'm sorry," I say to the waves as they patter up the sand.
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"I know," they whisper. I feel the water gently brush my ankles
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with her fingers.
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And I know that I will always love the sea.
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http://www.nkpwhq.com/~freon/
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freon@kmfms.com
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uXu #585 Underground eXperts United 2001 uXu #585
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Call THE YOUNG GODS -> +351-1XX-XXXXX
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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