Exile on the Beach

My breakfast soup releases the tangy smell of seaweed as I prise the lid off, and if I close my eyes I can imagine the eerie call of the gulls. Wherever we were on the salty green ocean there was always a bird to fly alongside between the masthead and the sparkling wavetops. We kept each other company, men and birds, all of us far from a safe shore and a solid perch. We fed them with our catches, we followed them to the shore when the equipment failed us.

I've been away from the sea too long, did she send me off in disgrace or did I run and hide? The last ship whose deck I trod upon was a ferry between Malta and Gozo, and I paused by the door to the engine room as I caught the scent of hot oil and heard the murmur of the rumbling diesels. I sailed a small yacht around for a few years, but it didn't have the same thrill, even though the fear was just as strong. A vessel with a single sailor is an empty vessel.

This is a monotonous world where nothing rises and falls, and nothing slides slowly across the tabletops to tumble playfully to the floor, and nothing is what I feel about the flat earth that promises it will never take me by surprise. When I get too old to be allowed to continue to trudge around the paths and pavements will I see a quayside in front of me, and a ship tied up with the gangplank quivering, and hear a call from the bridge to get my ass aboard smartly if I please?

Well then, let that be it; if I have to go at all, I would like to go in an old familar way.