What Was Coming

What Was Coming
It’s funny how they always stood there looking out to sea; looking outwards at the very edge of the country on the cliffs – their feet hanging ten, their knees bent and their eyes squinting looking, always looking; on beaches their feet buried in the sand. Their skin was browned from the constant sun, and wind, and salt. Their hair was bleached like shells deposited after storms, too far up on the rocks for the seas to reclaim. And they looked ever seaward; ever forward, looking to see What Was Coming.

The sea swelled and calmed before them; at night it foamed white and often seemed empty; it’s emptiness, baroness, loneliness, soothed and lulled them, they swayed together and whispered words of contentment into the wind; and the wind carried it to the ears of the watchers, the waiters, waiting to see What Was Coming.

Occasionally, the blue metamorphosed before their eyes, inextricably, unexplainably, naturally to grey, then to black. Behind the blackness was a menace and a rage that confused the watchers; they breathed shorter breaths, they whined in fear, their skinny bodies clinging to rock faces pounded by spray as the ocean roared and changed and they peered forwards, always forwards looking waiting for What Was Coming.

Once the menace temporarily subsided, their eyes squinted to slits, looking to see if What Was Coming had arrived. They found debris, little mementos of What Was Coming washed up by the ever-changing untrustworthy ocean. The debris was foreign, unrecognizable and inferior and useless as all unrecognizable things. The debris was frightening and strange and different, ‘not like ours’ they said. And they looked again fiercer, looking forwards out to sea waiting for What Was Coming.

They congratulated themselves that they were there on the front line, unwavering watching waiting protecting us all, holding back the tide of What Was Coming; congratulated themselves for being watchers and waiters because it was now, could be now, the time for What Was Coming.

And the seas brought with it stories from the world, but they would not turn around or look away, abandon their post, they must keep watching and waiting, eyes forward and searching looking for What Was Coming.

They had been waiting for What Was Coming for 225 years by the time I stopped to look at them. They were weary, but not enough to turn around and look behind them, to look away, their vigilant search for What Was Coming. I said nothing, what could I say. What Was Coming?

I looked behind them and I saw a mandala of people in the shapes of rivers, birds black and blue, I saw shapes swaying and moving looking inwards towards their heart.
Once or twice the occasional nervous glance over a shoulder; glancing, chancing What Was Coming. Inside their circles, I smelled food, and fabric, joy and animals. Inside their circles I felt warm and cold, hugged and forbidden. Inside their circles I heard sounds, music, laughter, crying, wailing.

I looked out to sea and heard nothing but the wind, on my skin I felt nothing but the wind and salt, my feet felt burned on the hot rough rocks and I looked at the proud silent faces either side of me, facing outwards, always forwards waiting for What Was Coming; I turned inwards, I looked inwards.