Old boat…

It must have been painted over and over. Each coat covering the previous year’s quickly brushed lick - another year, then another year - so that young boys could go out onto the water and old men could gently smoke their pipes and quietly fish. Now, forgotten behind the dunes, full of sand and almost overcome by the marren grass, the old row boat lay forgotten.

Winter rain and summer storm had taken its toll on the boat’s once pristine surface. Under the green the blue was showing through, then the pink beneath, and on down to the thin hull’s wooden and metal nakedness. No more boys to dive from stern to water. No more old men to tap their pipes against the side and, wearily picking up the short wooden oars, row slowly and fishlessly back to shore for a pint.

An old forgotten boat chanced upon on a windy, wet walk along the sands; an old sailor fading away in the blowing sand.