A Sea Story
Posted: Friday, 09 May 2008 |
9 comments |
With the collie at her heels, she took the track down to the shore. The sun set fire to the ocean in the West, shimmering, glowing coals upon the water, and the landscape around her took on a ruddy hue that belied the cold air and gave the illusion of heat.
There was a spot on the beach, a kind of starting point for her walk along it....in the sandbank of the small dunes, gulls nested and spat angrily at the hound, who always managed to keep clear, just, of the stinking mess fired in her direction, skiting back apace, whuffing at the birds in defiance.
To get there, she`d to cross the single track road, and over the stones piled up for some semblance of sea defense, for in winter gales, the waves breached the road and the fields, bestowing rocks and weed and driftwood...and these stones, so hard and slippery to walk over, never really kept the might of the water back...well, though, such trifling things couldn`t, could they?
Then she walked onto the hard packed sand, and the hound bounced and ran her way along the shoreline, just touching with swift paws, the lapping waves, leaving prints in the sand, gone soon enough as the water kissed the shore.
Tonight, her heart was heavy, and there was none of the usual joy in this walk....troubles and pain flitted in and out of her mind, unbidden, like the harpies of old, deeply taloned, peircing creatures, and she sought the solace of the shore, a place between worlds, as balm to soothe such.
But no magic worked tonight.
Following the footsteps of the hound, she kept her head down, watching the sand, watching the waters take the paw prints before her own feet, seeing shells she normally would have picked up, pocketed, taken home to put into the big glass jar on the windowsill.
Along the length of the waterline, a wavering, curving thing, few straight lines in nature, and never once looking up, not seeing where the hound went, into the dunes, not hearing the silence of the collie as she vanished into the marram grass, her tail leaving a whishing trail to follow if the woman had looked.
But the stretch of beach ended, and ended where, across the road, someone had a home. She looked at it and saw lights in the window, the cosy low kind that reinforced loneliness and made a shameful thing of looking, and she lowered her eyes and turned back the way she came, walking some yards before realising the collie was missing.
No alarm though...this hound of hers, oh, she was an old hound, a full ten years, but with the energy of a pup, bright and alert and always curious...so no doubt she`d found a delicacy of a dead rabbit somewhere and would bring it back to her feet, a gift to share, reeking and maggoty, and she`d pat her head and say "Good girl, well done" in tribute to the hunting heritage of hounds everywhere...
But as she walked on, there was no sign of the collie, and softly, she called her name, expecting an answering bark, receiving none, wondering if the dog had given up the walk and made her own way home...
Alongside the dune, she spotted the paw prints, dry sand this time so not taken by the sea, disappearing into the grass, and she left the shoreline and followed them.
There was something as old as time about sand and sea grass, something unchangable about it, and memories of the Aquatic Ape came into her mind, and of lives spent on a shoreline, shell gatherers, fishers, sea-gazers...
the sand was clean and dry, the grass whipping at her legs but fragrant with the sea air in the dying light, and she walked into the depth of the dune, into the hollows that cut off the breeze and cocooned the sound of the ocean.
In the rust coloured twilight, she could only make out the paw prints, just...and followed them around the corner of the marram where they twisted back and curved around, back out of the dune, towards the beach once more....
to the shoreline she walked, crunching shell and pebble and grit underfoot, following the tracks of her hound like a safari hunter watching spoor...
until she could follow no more, for they ended at the oceans edge, vanishing into the waves...and puzzled, she stared out to the water...this can`t be right...the hound must have veered left, or right, and gone back to the road, to the track, and home...
struggling now to see the sand and prints, she bent down, looking for them, trying to see the turned off path the dog took, not finding it, back and forth, seeking, sometimes straightening up to call out the hound`s name, a little more frantic now...
As the last light faded, the sun swallowed by the sea, and the gloom of night settled upon the shore, she turned for home, still calling the hound, believing her to be waiting, though, at the door to the house, bouncing at her, as if to say, what kept you? Let me in...
Over the stones, again..across the road...up the track in the dark, seeing the white flash of rabbit tales in her path, hearing the soft, gentle beat of the owl`s wings hunting the night, and the lonely curlew, late home, across the field.
At her back, eyes watched...glowing softly green, they were, peering out from the waves like emeralds, set into a smooth and unlined face, eyes that saw in the dark, farther than any dog, clearer than any human. Eyes that vanished again as she turned the corner at the top of the track, as the owner of them cut into the water like silk, gills dripping, fins slicing, hands fluttering down into the deep dark ....
At the door to the house was no hound waiting. And though she looked all around her place, in the outbuildings, in impossible places she knew made no sense, still, the hound was gone, and she knew that, could feel the lack of her.
She lived alone and was solitary by nature..had no-one to call, to ask if her hound was there, maybe having decided to take a wander, to visit other dogs maybe or ran after a fleeing rabbit, too far, straying into someone else`s territory.
Nothing to do, then, but wait for the morning, and hope she came back. And if not? Then she`d go looking...on a small island, there would surely be some sign of her hound, somewhere?
The house was quiet..the island hushed..folks slept, but she did not. She sat at the table by the window and watched the dark and looked, unseeing, at the Northern Lights as they shimmered and shone across the skies. The glimmer of light that was the sea flickered, at the bottom of the track, across the road and the stones, and she watched it until tiredness made her lay her head on her arms, and like so, upon the table, face turned to the night window, she slept a fitful, dreaming sleep.
And in the dark, green eyes looked in upon her face and watched.
(It`s no` finished yet though )
Posted on Hermit Life at 08:21
Comments
hurry up with the follow up or i'll go into "cold turkey" mode
carol from you just keep me hanging on!
OH YE GODS
HL that was fantastic, one of your very best, I walked every inch of that shoreline with her. Please finish it, where's the poor wee hound??
GerCelt from Dublin, Ireland
I'm almost weeping here HL. I know it's a story but one of our dogs at home has just had pups. Little bundles of black and white Collie, I couldn't bear it if anything happened to one of them.
Carol from IBHQ
Oh wow! Hurry up and finish. Hurry up and finish. Hurry up and finish! (See, you have to imagine this being said iin the same way that "Are we there yet"? is said - over, and over, and over, and over......;-)
Ellie from down here
I want to write this comment before reading the others. HL, that's a very mysterious and evocative tale that you tell. I hope it is a figment of your imagination and not something from real life. I look forward to the next installment.
Barney from Swithiod listening, reading
Very nice prose HL, full of imagery and ethereal feeling ... had a feel of Boudica of the Eceni - they called their dogs hounds too, carefully bred the best bloodlines, and had a special relationship with them ...
soaplady from glowing with admiration ...
It`s just a story, Barney, with only small bits of real life in it. :-)
But, I love dogs and have always called the hounds and always kept them throughout my life. They are loyal and loving and never judge us, and I admire their history and heritage, from the times when they were first domesticated to when they were treated with such honour whole funerals were held for brave and famed hounds that protected kings and queens of old. :-)
Of course, there are exceptions...Yorkshire terriors..what on earth are they? Can`t be real dogs, surely.......
*waits for Yorkie owners to start yelling now...*
Thanks though guys, I`m just letting my imagination run riot and having some fun with writing.
Hermit from Sanday
Cool. Very Cool. Keep em comming :)
Salty from Dublin
And here's me thinking "yorkies" were chocolate bars!
carol from over here
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