Inland

I watch people run into the sea.

They smile and jog, hand-in-hand, and run into the sea with their belongings, like happy refugees escaping into the ocean.

The beach is sheltered by high rocks from both sides, and the only wind is a cool breeze that breathes inland along the line of people who queue for the water, a breeze that makes the reeds dance and play on the fringe of the sand dunes.

I sit up on the rocks and watch; my eyes seeing everything and my mind choosing to disbelieve.

The people chat and joke, and glance behind them from time to time; back along the coast road that I remember comes a town. They come to wet sand and scurry into the surf.

Many have taken off their shoes and socks, so that there is a modest pile of each, and a little sonorous terrier races up and down the shoreline, barking and yipping in indignation re: the commotion on his beach.

An old man with tanned, beaten skin, the colour of soft leather, picks up the occasional suitcase or attaché that has floated back after a Runner has gone running, or under, I don't know the exact terms, and he has large sweat stains under the armpits of his shirt, and clears a path to aid the congestion of the column. Battered suitcases, held with string; hats; shoes and every manner of luggage lies in the residual waves: the tide is going out.

I watch a woman get down on one knee to ensure her boy has buttoned up his duffel coat, and then turn to straighten a lock of hair that has escaped from a clip in the nearest daughter's hair, so that the children look presentable and as well turned out as a Sunday gathering. She smiles at the daughter she hasn't had time to touch. Then she lifts a suitcase under one arm, and uses the suitcase-hand to take hold of the boy's hand, and instructs him to take his sister's hand and tell her to take the other sister's hand, and the four make a cheerful chain, and then dash into the waves, her off-hand flagging down time, as if they were hurrying for an approaching bus that they knew would always wait upon seeing them.

Another woman, the same family features as the previous woman, follows them, her figure swollen with pregnancy, and joins her nephew and twin nieces and her big sister in the water. She has her hair pinned up in curls, which start to become undone. My eyes follow her with fascination and she strides into the water; first up to her knees, and that gasp of the cold; then to her crotch, and the reflexive movement below her belly, and suddenly her breasts and then she sinks. There must be a shelf a few metres out, and I see very little more of her, apart from a flounce of the red dress she was wearing.

Further away from the water, and the sand gets drier and gives way to scrubby tundra. The line of people swells and flares out. The stream of people becomes a river, becomes a delta, fed by tributaries from all directions inland. They all lead to the shore.

I lose sight of the queue at the crest of the first low hill, but I can feel the hundreds and thousands beyond. Does that make sense? Perhaps thousands of hundreds. I can feel them coming from beyond that hill. The rocks seem to vibrate and shudder and I know how sensitive I can be but I can feel the world around me, and the great force of energy marching towards the greater force of earth, of terra, of the sea. The sea will undo all of this.

I see the old people from the thatched cottages up on the cliffs come down from their kitchens with little bundles of clothing and then slowly pick their way down through the rocks and dunes to the shoreline. They are the only people who know all the paths. They want to die too. People in the main stem of the column, about two-hundred yards from the water, make space for them, with respectful smiles of deference, so that the old men and women can avoid waiting. They gratefully take their places and turn to face the waves.

Handbags, hats, a floating pair of spectacles. The man with the sweat stains moves them aside. I wonder who will take his place?

I wonder.

I wonder.

I wonder what would happen if I were to come down from the rocks and walk along the red strand and follow the columns of people backwards, back inland. Up over the sand-dunes and the low hills and the fear and the heat and the smell.

I wonder what has occurred inland to drive these good people to the water. I wonder why they are so happy to wade out. I always wonder why I wake up just after I realise that the look on their faces is not one of happiness, but of relief.