Dogs or Kids
A shark’s body had cracked in two.
Its remains were awash the steps in front of where we picnicked that day.
The tower that loomed in front of us had no bottom.
It dissolved in the surf, which licked at lower stone and iron abdomen.
The unrelenting stone of ages smacked a dull thud upon my crown as I reached the top of the watch tower. The Portuguese had build it strong and unforgiving and so I stepped out on to the ringed plateau with a shade in my eye. Dizziness took me and much of everything else dropped from my arms. Life is not Chess, but this Ruck was unmoved and otherwise straight in force. I manoeuvred to the wall to rest each buttock on the side-stone; cold in the shade I came too and saw him before me, his head silhouette blocking the sun. It was then that we turned to look below. Fragmented white and blue foam like sequins embellished in the heat and beaches that stretched as far as the curving land could go.
Slow heaps of dunes patched with green grass and glistening movement.
The door slammed and I was alone again.
We reached the shore through a thicket of sharpening knives otherwise known as gorse and rested a while on the rocks at the East end of the beach. A power station dominated the horizon and the heat arising sifted any existing foundations into bleached haze. The gargantuan build floated like a castle in the distance as we gazed at families in the foreground. Kids ran naked too and fro, from sea to sand land and back, pissing in the waves, charging at the sky.
We clambered down to walk a stretch of sand daring the waves with our toes. Soon jellyfish were more exciting and less alive washed up on the shore, drying out in the sun. My legs neck nose and forehead stung and our water supply was running low.
Its as if they had watched too many nature programmes. Their movements were exactly like the Meerkats at Butterfly World in Leeds, and they were just as exposed. But this was East Lothian and we were on the beach. The sun was shooting its rays along the coast and against the wet sand, up in to our eyes upon our foreheads burning pasty calves along the way. We turned our gaze inland away from the water to rest our eyes upon the palette of reeds and green grass amongst sand dunes. It was here the animals began to play.
One man stood all of a sudden atop the highest dune like a king set amongst cloudless skies. He was tanned and, as he started to pull down his lower garments, we could see this was an all over tan. So he was used to being naked. After a while two more men stood in the same way, but on lower dunes, and a hierarchy was played out as more nakedness appeared. Then two more men and two more and soon the dunes were full of buttocks thighs and clean shaven skin. Their obviousness matched their ability to remain as animals in a new kingdom; cruising they were and all we could do was watch as if visitors in a zoo. Thankfully we saw no intercourse, this must have happened as they dropped beneath the grass again and out of sight. And this did happen, they did drop, and all came together under the watchful eye of the top most gay man.
