EMPTY VESSEL

The waves wash up as is their wont in a series of erratic undulations, mercilessly crashing onto everything that stands in their wake.

Seemingly exacting revenge at whim, each billow forces the shore edge underwater interminably. Stoic limpets cling onto the rocks for their life as the water gushes from pool to pool.

Gritty sediment and stringy sea flora strike and strangle all in their path; the nervous Neomphaloidea forever oblivious to the timing of the next wave, its content or size.

As the surge swells, a frothy sweat foams and fizzes on the rocks, exposing the battered surface and its commensals to a flicker of sunlight that seems to spell out the end of the torturous ordeal. Alas, no, just a momentary lull, the downbeat of another lap in this ceaseless Sisyphean cycle; each lap, every lap one is always foolishly convinced must be the last.

// Documentary shoot at Beachy Head, Eastbourne, UK – in 2010 the third most common suicide spot in the world.

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