The gulls follow a body as it bobs and rolls in the fizzing spume below. They are scrawny, easily batted about in the fierce wind, and must battle to maintain their course between an abandoned sailboat and the shore. The birds take turns to dive into the spray around the tumbling body. It doesn’t respond. From their height, it is identifiably human and a breadth-ratio between shoulder and hips that suggests it is male. If correct, then it is below average height and weight. Age is unclear, although its mushroom-coloured scalp glows through wiry, greying hair.
A few birds peel off to check the small roto-sailboat for scraps. Fierce waves strike the unanchored vessel, forcing it out to sea. Soon the Atlantic brume will swallow it whole. The rest of the colony tracks the body in the water. They keep watch as the tide sucks the limp figure back from the edge of the shale beach, raises it up in a high swell, then spits it out onto the shiny wet shingle.
After a few seconds, the birds land and turn their orange beaks toward the body. From above, the man appears blessed with a halo–the aura shimmers through the mizzle each time a bird edges forward. Soon, they are close enough to notice burst blood vessels in waxy olive skin, drowsy lice stirring in the drying hair and beard, and a tough old scar which runs the length of an outstretched finger and points in hope to an unseen god. Misty breath escapes the man’s chapped lips and condenses onto the cold shingle.
Lost.
Alone.
Alive.
Washed up on a beach at the north-eastern tip of an island. An unwelcoming cove in a desolate place, little more than a scarred hunk of stone a thousand miles from mainland Europe. It’s all that remains of a much larger landmass, from a much older time. Rock by rock, year by year, it slowly crumbles into the sea.
The man groans, opens an eye, shoos away the encroaching gulls, rolls over, rolls back again, lifts himself up, collapses, pants, presses his fists into the shale, ignores the sharp shells cutting his knuckles and pushes and pushes until he is on all fours. He surveys the beach. Birds peer down from the safety of shallow cliffs which flank him.
Rain thickens. Thin droplets tightly packed like gunshot in a shell. Scattered by gale-force winds, they strike the man all over. He hunches, squints, and grimaces, then sniffs the air. A packless wolf hunting for hope.
Only two ways off the beach – back out to sea or up past the gulls. Not much of a choice. After a long look at the cliff, he stands and faces away from the waves. He rises too quick. His footing uncertain. The wind lashes. An angry attack on an enfeebled frame, whacking him off-balance. His boots slide across the shifting shale, waltzing him to the base of the cliff like a tipsy maiden aunt from a Victorian novel who wears a bemused expression torn between triumph and torment.
Boulders and large rocks litter the beach. The man sees them but ignores the threat of rockfall and begins a careless ascent. Clumsy through exhaustion, he scrambles over the treadmill of loose crag. Minutes pass and he is no closer to the summit, just a little further north along the incline. He’s dogged though; senseless even. An automaton that keeps clawing, clambering, shuffling upwards.
Morning passes into afternoon, the rain abates, the wind chooses a direction and sticks to it, and the gulls get bored and disappear to the southwest of the island where the colony nest. Tuffs of sharp grass appear between the rock. Vegetation increases, rock gives way to soil, and the incline flattens out. Still a little way to go, but sensing the worst is over, the man rolls onto his back and questions the slate grey sky. When it fails to reply, he sits and stares at the sea, cups his hand above his eyes, and searches left and right. Faced with nothing but endless ocean, he gets to his feet and continues up towards the crest of the hill. About halfway, he stops. Rising behind the uneven line of the horizon is the unerring tip of a concrete structure. After a pause, the man alters course and heads toward the building, walking the same steady pace.
Beyond the summit, indented into the island like a giant’s thumbprint, is a slight crater. Within it stands an austere, utilitarian watch-house. A dreary destination, small and tombstone grey, as befits a final resting place. The drab concrete box of uniform lines sits oddly against the untamed landscape, yet somehow the building is bleak enough to blend with its surroundings.
Seeing the sombre house, he lowers his chin, his lips thin and his hollow cheeks ashen. The ruddiness gained from the climb drains away. Though spent, he finds the strength to carry on across the final few hundred metres to the finish line, knees buckling under each laboured step.
It is impossible to escape the roaring waves and howling winds, but embedded within is another sound. The thud-thud-thudding of a salt-nibbled gate. It bangs like a beacon, calling the man home. At each new thud he corrects his slouch, remembers to lift a foot and move forward. Thud. Step. Thud. Step. Thud. Step. One follows the other. Entranced by the rhythm, he hobbles across the slippery, uneven ground, waking from his reverie to slump against an unloved concrete wall. His cheek presses against the coarse surface, and his fingers caress the patches of mint-coloured lichen which have grown unsullied for years. His touch is rough, bits flake off and fall to the floor.
The wall seems unnecessary – the house stands alone on an isolated island, hidden from maps, in the middle of the ocean. As a boundary between somewhere and nowhere, it is surplus; there’s no one to keep out. If built as a defence against the weather, it fails its purpose; the sad windswept vegetable garden cries out for better protection. Perhaps the wall only exists to provide comfort to exhausted castaways.
A sea eagle floats overhead and catches the man’s attention, stirring him from his thoughts. On tiptoes, he looks over the wall and sees a window further along. He drops and walks until he judges himself alongside it, then tiptoes again. Despite the strain, the glimpse inside the house raises a smile, then a double-take, and his smile fades. He frowns and drops to his heels. Suddenly, his head is too heavy for his neck and his eyes fixate on the space between his shoes and the wall. He kicks the concrete over and over; an ineffectual jackhammer which barely makes a dent. Too tired to keep it up for long, his rage passes as quickly as it began.
For several minutes he is in stasis, standing erect like a grotesque taxidermy. Then, as if electrified, the effigy bursts to life and glares up at the first-floor windows of the watch-house. Transformed, from exhausted man to a thing becoming. In this new state it is alert and inquisitive. Curious about its own form, it finds its way around an unknown body: flexing fingers, stretching out shoulders, jarring its jaw. It twitches, moves its head from side to side, then marches through the gate.
After much sluggish labour, this vigour, this sense of urgency, is dramatic.
This new man breaks his determined stride, stops, turns, and shuts the gate firmly before checking it is on the latch. He takes a few more purposeful steps, stops at the door to draw deep breaths and fill his lungs. Then, cupping one hand over his mouth, he forces open the door and disappears from view.