The North Sea Wall

A haunting fret creeps in on another dark and dreary morning by the North Sea wall
The wind carries in a ships horn across the estuary that sounds like a mythical monsters painful cry
It catches me unaware and I feel a chill down my spine

I've walked this path many times and each time I do I imagine the thousands of sailors and trawler men that left this place and never came home, their ghosts watching me from the waves
At that very thought I walk a little faster

In the foggy distance I see the water tower and I'm reminded of Chapman's Pond below it and the tales of it being Bottomless and haunted
Stories of a drowning girl splashing, calling for help but then disappearing as her rescuers jump in
In my imagination she has blonde curls and her naughty little spirit laughs, as the confused heroes can no longer See her
It makes me smile

As I pass the north wall steps I think back to when I was a little girl
I remember being hit by a wave and it taking my silver St Christopher into the sea
The one left to me by my grandmother
The one I begged to be given to me before I was 18 and promised to take great care of
I didn't stop to think that the wave could have taken me
I think about that now, the naive innocence
Or blatant stupidity

An intrusive daydream takes me back
But this time I am taken by the wave, the freezing salt water swallowing me whole and a darkness descending over Me
I wonder, if I were religious and believed in the patron saint of travellers, I could believe that St Christopher Carried me from the water that day
And in that moment
I am thankful to be alive