The Swell

The village of Kilcrohane behind, he walks steadily toward the blank oblivion of the western horizon. The ocean, glittering and vast in the afternoon sun, stretches from Bantry Bay to Dunmanus, around the Sheep's Head Peninsula; one long ridge running South West from Durrus out into the Atlantic.

He walks pensively in the heat toward the vast shimmer, the sun dominating a blue sky marbled with wisps of white. His sweat beads then trickles, tickles and finally drys in the sea breeze or else pools between his back and the rucksack becoming slick and soggy. He feels his muscles warm and his feet in the hiking boots grow hot. The air is fresh and sweet, the surrounding fields are quiet and peaceful apart from the occasional bleating of sheep and the intimacy of the light wind gusting at his collar, whispering at his ears, carrying the fresh salt of the sea.

Through the old town lands pace by pace he follows the road slowly rising up. His solid boots plod heavily on the Tarmac in a steady rhythm. Through Knockroe, Dooneen, Aughaleigue and Caher he passes, to Letter West where the road splits. He takes the right fork, the smaller of the two, going up steeper to the crest of the ridge. He follows the tufts of grassy mohican gently pushing through, his patchy guide, the earth's gentle reclamation. Come follow, come follow, where the Tarmac grows thin, come follow to my gentle heart, to the essence of me. The going is harder now and his lungs begin to labour. Up and up, incremental progress; legs flexing, sinews pulling, muscles burning, one step after another; down, pull, straighten, gently lock, raise. Flies and bees amble by, ignoring his effort, hedgerows hum with life.

At the top, above the fields by Ballyroon, he stops and drinks from his canister. Around him, the ridge is crested with the curls of heath and heather and splashes of yellow gorse. His legs tremble slightly, shocked muscles surprised by use. The cold water hits his guts and he feels a new flush of sweat. From here, to his right, he can see across Bantry bay to Beara and to his left across Dunmanus. He squints for a while at a small white sail etching it's way in the glistering silver then, packing his water, he sets off before his muscles cool.

Heading down now, it's a different walking, a different strain, legs braking, managing his gravity, as the road winds down from Reagh into the sweet wee fields of Letter East. The muscles in his thighs begin to burn as he resists the pull back, introducing himself by degrees to the thick hedge rows and warm, thick air. The road winds up and round and through and down, the air still now in the shelter below the ridge, the heat close, smothering. He has crossed the width of the peninsula and coming to another junction he rolls on toward the water.

After a hundred yards, letting gravity and the pull of the blue guide him, he takes the first gravel lane. His feet stumbling casually on the loose stone, crunching underfoot while a brook gurgles in the ditch beside him. Down, down he is pulled, to the small harbour at the end of the lane, a slip and a short wharf cobbled together from loose stone and concrete, at the start of a small cove, the flat, wide water stretching out into the end of Bantry bay and on into the Atlantic. The pack slips from his shoulders and slides to the ground. He wobbles, unsteady in his new, lighter weight, stretching and rolling his shoulders in their sockets. The water spreads out before him, blue and cool, undulating, pulling his gut.

Lifting the pack in one hand, he crosses to the rickety barbed-wire fence running along side the lane. Where it meets the wharf there's a simple sty which he clambers over hefting the bag with him. Ten feet of marshy ground and then he's up on a small rise of mossy turf, shingle and rocky crag running down to the water. The track runs on along the rolling coast crossing hills stopped short by the sea, ending abruptly in craggy bays and cliffs, finally reaching round to abandoned copper mines. But he goes no further; maybe tomorrow, maybe next time. This is where he likes to camp, his spot for the tent; on a small patch of green between the track and the shore; a good spot for sitting. You can smell the air and sit by a fire and watch the sky fade magnificently to dark. Or watch the moods of the sea as it rolls in and crashes on the rocks, all froth and spume. This is where he likes to camp.

He rolls out the tent and sets to pitching it; slowly and methodically, taking pleasure in it. Inside is musty and smells vaguely of the last time; moldy peat and old smoke. When he's done and the dome is taut and tamed, he sets up the fire; the wood was worth the extra weight. A nice wee nook beside a ridge of rock makes perfect shelter from the sea breeze. He sets a kettle to boil and watches the sea roll, the wind lifting and flicking his fringe. Once the kettle is rattling and steam wisping from its spout, he lifts it from the fire and leaves it to one side then strips off his sticky clothes.

There is a cove, just round from this first bay, over the first eroded hill and ridge of solid rock. Its almost shear on each side, a straight drop, the water maybe thirty feet deep, depending on tide. Along the near side is a series of ledges perfect for jumping. The first is about eight feet to the shocking embrace of the Atlantic, the next is twice that and the last the same again. He has jumped the first two, and one day he'll jump the last.

He stands with the sea breeze nipping at his skin, his toes crooked over the edge looking down. His mind swims a little, figuring the height, stunned a little, resisting the plunge. He tricks himself, knowing he'll never jump otherwise, he begins to move his legs letting them bend toward the inevitable without admitting it, without thinking of it, and then he's past the point of return and he has to push with his legs to clear the edge and he's jumping. Jumping, that gut clutching, churning, shocking, invigorating leap of faith. Sailing through the air for a brief, stunning moment. Giving himself to the sky, surrendering control, relinquishing all his power leaving only sensation and faith; faith in body, faith in earth, faith in air, faith in stone. For a second his heart is in his throat as he falls like lead. Vaguely, he can hear his bellowing as though from a distance. And then th'voom.

He is clutched to the core by an icy embrace, enveloped instantly in another world, a soft green gloom parallel to our own. A million bubbles roll up his skin and water thunders in his head. Through the green murk, with light filtering from above, he sinks, slowing; the world becoming darker, colder, still. Then he floats suspended for a moment until the pressure builds on his chest, gradually more insistent until, following the bubbles, he pushes himself upward to break the surface, body in delighted shock as he rolls up and down in the heaving bosom of his salt mother. The sky demands his howl, raw, coarse, honest, before words and reason.

Smiling wildly, his face stretched like a loon, he spits salt and mucus. His body treads the swell, feeling the energy in the ocean; huge, massive, vibrating. A living thing, cold mother's spit, cold vaginal fluid, filled with silver and green. He's flotsam, surrounded by the huge rhythmic energy, a spec of debris in her uncaring mass, insentient, dangerous and full of life. He knows now why men have fallen in love and called this 'her', leaving home and hearth, never returning except for short whiles, restless and itching to be back, to go to roam, to flow on her belly.

Then he's out again, to go again. Hauling himself up barnacled, green weeded rock, to return to the ledge. This time he jumps with more confidence and exhilaration, and then jumps again. Playing with the variations; height, style of jump; again and again thumping into the cold sea, heart warming, chest expanding, mind lightening. Until his body begins to cool and he returns to the tent and a warm towel and goose-bumps and hot tea by the fire and drying in the warm sun and the sea breeze flicking his damp fringe across his forehead.

That night he falls asleep to the sighs of the sea breaking her heart on the stony shore, and he dreams. He dreams of a time long, long ago when the ocean was clean and pure and empty, of a time when gods and marvels lived on the earth and the land was full of magic. In this time there was a great king who had many daughters, each stunningly beautiful, each wildly different. The most beautiful, the fairest of them all it was said, was his third, sweet Eilish. Eilish of the moon, no creature has ever been fairer. Her skin was a pale silver, her hair jet black silk, her lips like fresh cut blood. Her eyes shone like watery emeralds and she melted every man's heart, driving them to delirium or folly. To see her, they said, was to fall in love, her very being was raw, nubile fecundity and men would groan as she moved.

Every month the suitors would come and beg her father for his daughters hand, shower him with gifts, venture great feats of daring to impress upon him their worthiness. but he loved her too much and could not bear to think of any man having her, so he would always think of reasons to refuse. Poor Eilish would live her life in monthly cycles of excitement, anticipation and hope followed by disappointment and sorrow, while one by one her sisters found love and lives of their own. No matter how much she begged or wept, her father could not bring himself to give her up. So little by little, inch by inch her joy slowly left her.

Then one night, under the glow of the full moon, Eilish walked from her father's house to the shore of the great ocean. She stood gazing out over the sea as her sweet salt tears rolled down her cheeks and into the water. A low slow lament came to her heart and from there to her perfect lips. She began to sing the most wonderful song of sorrow, the notes floating on the breeze. Out in the ocean the waters began to stir, the great sea began to roll and churn moving toward her then away, a great, gentle dance of grief and loneliness. Her voice and the sea moved, her body following, swaying. Too late her father woke to hear his daughter's distant lament, for she was already, without knowing, slowly wading into the cold waters. And as she sang, and as her father rushed in madness and fear to the shore, she felt herself become softer. First her thoughts and then her body becoming vague, less defined, as she waded deeper with the sea rolling and shifting around her. She began to fade. She began to flow into the clear clean ocean, all her energy, her youth, her lust, her fertility bleeding and flowing into the water; filling it with teaming life and heaving sighs.

In the morning he wakes to grey cotton skies and the yearning of gulls.