A forest of anchors the iron hot to the touch, sit like silent sentinels against incursions from the sea. Half buried in the soft white sand of the dunes they are a stark reminder of long ago battles, the thin shadows offering no reprieve from the baking sun.
Wreck shore, they called it, the wood long ago rotted away, the row of anchors the only reminder of battering storms, of life boats hurriedly lowered and of prayers uttered aloud to an unseen god, asking for a reprieve.
The harsh sun beat down upon the thin strip of beach, its sand white against the starkness of the yellow desert beyond. Sand against sand, separated by a black line of anchors. A broken sign lies half buried in the sand, the bits of paint barely holding on to the wood showing a picture of the skull to those who cared to look – the sign offering no reprieve to those who had made it that far.
Today WordPress has given us two one-word prompts – Street and Precious. Precious street or street precious. The former makes more sense.
PS – Also entered in this week’s Discover Challenge – when I saw the prompt I though how appropriate this post was for that too.
As a family we relocated to South Africa in 1974 and until my folks found their feet some 5 years later, we lived in different places. My Dad had the same job for all of this time, so the reason we moved around a lot is that my folks rented all the time instead of buying a house. Come to think of it, it took a while before they could afford to buy their own home. They had 3 kids under the age of 10 to clothe, feed and educate.
Mozambican-born Portuguese South African; reflecting on travel, writing, editing, life, family and change that has social impact; chief wide eyed in wanderer, wonderer and bottlewasher
