Just a few lines, notes for a bigger story, written amid the sea cabbage, yellow poppies, mallow and deadly nightshade. As I traded, like for like, wheezes and death rattles with the sea hassled shingle.
Sitting quietly in the lee of a groyne I watched a lion and a raven fashion a raft from the tattered and decaying detritus of past lives. As they prepared to board their flimsy craft the lion hesitated.
"Why do you falter". Asked the raven.
"I cannot swim". He replied.
"Neither can I". Said the raven "If the raft falls apart we will drown together".
Reassured, the lion climbed aboard and they set off from the shore.
I heard no more of their conversation but watched in horror as, some 200 yards from shore the raft did indeed disentangle itself from self and that which mattered for purposes of buoyancy.
As the lion sank beneath the waves the raven spread her wings. The raven spread her wings to be snatched up, wheeling, soaring, heading skywards. Landwards.
The lion, consumed, unaware of the potency of his own magic, legs becoming fins, tail broadening and flattening, gill slits opening, swam down to join the mermaids in their salty songs.
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