Children
The puddle- forming rain pummelled the already soft white cliffs. Green and healthy grass spread back from the precipice, breaking only for the paths of white stone traversing around the top of the cliff. It was saturated with what was good for it — already full from its breakfast of dew and frost. A few cherry trees stood as still as the sheep, stoic in their ignorance. A man appeared over the top of the last hill before the flat walk along the seaside cliff, with him were two young children. One was splashing in the young puddles and slipping on the fast forming mud — the other, too young to walk, slept quietly in the push chair, already confident that this man was her father, before the word could even be conjured and gurgled, the way infants do. A few seconds later a woman inappropriately dressed came into view, half walking and half running after the family. Her fashionable light yellow coat was whipping in the wind and revealing white, red-raw, naked legs. She was younger than the father and her methods of seeking out his attention seemed as a child’s, too fast, crass and bodily for her to be assumed his wife.
Their voices might have been heard on a day less frantic — but the wind with no barrier except empty horizon over the cliff edge, sped towards it with a howling intensity, occasionally blown back by the forces coming in from the sea. The rain came down persistently, smacking against the plastic coats awkwardly and dribbling over the top of upturned hoods. So despite the animated shouts and squeals from the delighted girls all was lost to the weather. This was around two-thirty in the afternoon and as the group got closer to the view they noticed that the cliff wound so far, and hung so tightly to the coastline that they could see grassy planes and snow white stone paths not attacked by the weather. They were in a spot of storm bordered on both sides by blue skies and colourful sunlight mere miles away.
Anticipation of stopping probably spurred them on. I had come from the cafe a few hundred yards along the path and had noticed them coming toward me. As they passed me the father was consoling the girl it seemed, she was very beautiful and very young. Her coat had moved again and her flower patterned dress revealed enough flesh as to both invite and dissuade advance. Her skin had become almost translucent in the cold. She wanted to be kissed. I noticed as the father noticed and I sped past them as to avoid detection of my lingering glance.
After some time I turned to look back at her one last time. The sky was painted slate, grey, hard and close. Through the rain I could still see the light from the caf?, the refuge still warming me. I saw the father let go of the pram and take his lover in his arms and they embraced. The purple cherry tree moved hypnotically in the slowing wind. A heavy gasp of wind pushed forward through the tree towards the cliff and it flipped the pushchair with the sleeping infant over the bedraggled, tired fence at the cliff edge. The more adventurous child had gone to inspect how deep the precipice fell. A stray wheel caught the child and the two of them fell out of view. The woman started screaming and the man rushed to the edge and looked down toward the sea. I ran back. The woman clocked me strangely. I pulled the father back and threw him to the floor. I looked over and saw nothing, nothing except blue-white waves exploding on the rocks. I turned back and saw the tree again; it looked like it was waving. I knelt next to the man and lay my hand on his shoulder. He stared at me ‘…just a second…’ The woman was whiter still and crying-holding her dress down. People were running towards us from the cafe, their voices too lost to the wind.
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