Seafront: Storm, Brighton, October 2018

It was impossible to take the train
they said. October storms were the
cause. High, unnatural tides were
wreaking havoc all along the South
Coast. But I had promised to meet my
friend in Brighton. I was in a driftwood
mood that day, pacing my flat like a
marooned sailor, so I embarked on an
an uncertain voyage. I plunged headlong
into the choppy surf of the railway, like
flotsam flung up by the spray on random station forecourts, as rain battered
down and crew peered like lighthouse-
keepers into the gale, muttering dire
warnings as they thumbed rail schedules
like tidal almanacs. But somehow the mismatched flotilla of Saturday trains
nudged forward steadily; sturdy lifeboats
that reached shore four changes later.
I rolled from the station, still on sealegs,
to meet my friend, and we staggered
against the wind, skittering like pebbles
down side roads that sloped to the
lowering slab of concrete sea. It loomed
over us like a cliff, lashing out with its
kraken tentacles. As we ate in an Italian restaurant, throbbing predator waves
waited to crunch us like breadsticks and
pound us into bruschetta. It was like a
disaster movie, but no tsunami engulfed
us. And I floated home, buoyed up with
the day’s storm-tossed exhilaration. I
hold its memory; a fragment of sea-
ground glass, clear beneath its time
worn surface.