Story

Cumbrian Coast 2007

Aahlu

As the sun was setting I walked…………..out to the edge of the world……maybe someone with binoculars or telescope might have turned them my way but why would they be bothered? And what would they have seen anyway, against the sunset's glare? An old woman walking alone at the edge of the sea who took off her clothes and went for a swim. She wasn't wearing much anyway when she went across the sand, if you remember. A thin sarong and a cotton blouse. Flip flops because of the stones and something on a cord around her neck. Now she's out there, half an inch high against the horizon with the Isle on Man unseen in the distance, a blur, no more, even on the clearest of days……

Yes I allowed my things to come undone slowly, they do that easily enough anyway, the fringed hems flickering like little flags across my thighs. I undid my blouse too, all three of the buttons which only took seconds. That was it then. Naked to all intents and purposes, at least all down the front. Exhilarated I wandered in the wideness, dancing through puddles, revelling in the openness, wanting to fly, wanting to take everything off completely but not doing so yet (but what if I did? There was a rock on which to lie them) Wanting to swim but knowing it was too cold (but what if I did? I'd soon get warm again) So I paddled, waded, splashed deeper while the coolness swished higher and higher up my legs until the sea surged and sucked and snatched my breath away.

I allowed the ocean itself to undress me then, let the sarong billow around me like a cloud as waves lapped at my armpits, its tie dyed colours startlingly brighter, like the mantle of a jellyfish, now it was wet.

I swam where the water deepens at the edge of the ocean, brown rocks and black, shining in the sunset, while a wave lifted and carried, like a rumpled flag, my sarong away.

I wished I was a mermaid with a broadly forked tail instead of legs. Oooh the sea is cold but I wanted it to caress me anyway, needed it to kiss the place where my lover had left his own burnt offerings, the seeds he poured out to his - what was it he called me - his goddess of the sea.

As the sun was setting I swam out there, on the edge of the world, with the wind so keen that it scorched my belly, so sharp that it reddened my breasts. So hungry it gnawed again and again, at the bones of all those places where his lips had been……

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Mon, 5th April, 2010

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