Portrait
In the photographs it looks fair, sunny even. But in truth it was cloudy and over cast. Directional sunlight intermittently broke through the heavy grey clouds in golden god- rays, like some ill aimed spotlight searching the coast line. Missing us completely.
How can you trust a girl who comes and goes like the tide? She washes over you and then leaves you high and dry. Until next time, when she’ll come and do it all again. For 16 years she has breezed in and out of my life like this. Telling me her relationship troubles one minute, kissing me the next. Every time I think it will be different. That she will realise that I’m are the one she’s missing. But each time she leaves the country with a peck on your cheek, a hand squeeze, and ‘thank you for being my friend’. Always returning and leaving. I knew she’d never stay.
We went to the beach that day to say, what exactly? I hoped it wasn’t good bye. It was a day just like any other in the holidays. We brought all the usual junk food for the car ride, and it seemed like a little adventure. But our sense of fun was overshadowed, as if by the rain clouds on the periphery. She was leaving again. And I could feel her slipping away.
This secluded bay is enclosed by steep hills all around that fall in to the sea, and dark woodlands shelter the beach from view. A narrow, treacherously windy road delivered us almost on to the sand. We walked along the coast like it was our own private paradise. It was beautiful and she took pictures. This strange miniature shoreline so surreal in its contradictions. Blue ragged rock out-croppings emerge almost randomly from the peachy sand. They look so alien and out of place. How did she describe them again? Like the “polystyrene boulders from a Classic Trek planet”? And the pebbles here almost too perfect, like mini Easter eggs in all different colours, ochre, slate blue and burgundy red, in total contrast to the local geology. The pictures don’t show how changeable the sea is, or how dangerous. You’d never guess that so many of the Armada drowned here.
We walked the full length of the crescent, till there was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do but to turn and walk back. I was reluctant to go, and she had paused there, barefoot among the rock pools, with her back to me looking out to sea. If only I could keep her here, like this, saying nothing as we embraced. And it occurred to me, that this tiny girl, wilder now with no shoes on, might as well be a selkie, or some other sea sprite. I knew then there was nothing I could do to make her stay.
It occurs to me now, looking at the photograph, her empty shoes on the rock face, that it’s a picture of a missing person. An empty hope. Gold and glimmer mixes with sand and dust. A portrait of someone who was never really there. It occurs to me now, I am in love with a ghost.
Paty Cockrum
How sad… heart breaking, really… I can relate…
Unrequited love has it’s beauties and it’s pains… both very gently presented here…
Is the last line actually descriptive or only lyrically? One doesn’t know. Is she dead to the world or only to him? Or is she just gone to someone else? Either way, heart wrenching …
Paty
Reply
georgelondon
Bridgeen, this was beautiful and heartbreaking. I’m repeating Paty’s choice of word because it was the right one.
I know that a few of us struggled this week and have been left with the feeling that our pieces fell short somewhere and needed further work but this really doesn’t. You even managed to reference everyone else’s pieces; my sprite, Nina’s sadness and loss, Rivka’s giving a back-story to the actual slippers, Simon’s couple’s trip to the beach, and Ian’s separated lovers.
Great, great work once again.
Reply
Rivka Jacobs
A wonderful, lyrical piece, Bridgeen. I love stories that explore the different meanings of the concept of “ghost” — and you draw on both the psychological and hint at the supernatural.
Love and loss and the willingness to forgive, all are central themes of human existence. This might also be a perfect Valentine’s Day story, one day early!
Technically, your imagery is excellent. From the “misdirected god-rays” of sun-light — to the bizarre boulders and pebbles that look like something from STTOS — to the mix of gold and dust, you consistently underscore the contrast between love and loss. Your backdrop is one of mists and strange shorelines (crescent shaped, another great symbol)almost as if the two lovers are walking along the River Styx on the shores of the netherworld.
I didn’t feel this was a “heart-breaking” story. Rather, one of sadness but hope and not despair, because the final words are, the abandoned lover is still “in love” with a ghost. There is still hope, and no anger or reproach. There seems to be an attitude of acceptance and forgiveness.
Really nice writing!
Reply
Bridgeen Gillespie
Thank you all so so much for your comments. It’s been an absolute joy having you all write for my image this week. I always felt it was evocative of a bigger story. George I really wish I could accept the credit for managing to reference everyone elses story. In reality you were all closer to the truth than you could have imagined.
I took this photograph, and the golden slippers were my own. It is an irish beach,its a magical place and it really does look like how I describe it in my story. And the circumstance really was one that involved lovers. With one difference, she really did come back.
So Rikva maybe you are right? I am so pleased that you commented on imagry.Sometimes I am worried that I don’t give enough, that my descriptions are inadequate. But you seemed to pick up on the contrasts that I hoped to spell out the themes of love and loss indeed. Mystical images are not lost on you!
Again, just many, many thanks. Happy Valentines day.x
Reply
Nicolas Papaconstantinou
A lovely story, and a lovely image, Bridgeen. It was a great choice of photograph, and it’s obviously evoked something quite personal in each of the writers.
Mind you, a setting like that holds an almost mythical place in most people’s minds, so it’s no surprise that it inspired greatness!
Reply