Shakespeare on the Roof

by Anthony E Thorogood

  ***

  Fifteen: Silver Gulls

  I tried to move into a more comfortable position, I moved my leg, the pain was pretty bad. What the hell am I doing here, I thought. I looked down at my trousers, they were torn and there was blood on them. A seagull, a silver gull in point of fact, they hang around the beach front on the Australian coast stealing fish and chips, they form great aggressive mobs that fight and squawk and make a general nuisance of themselves, anyway, a silver gull landed on my ledge, looked at me and stretched its wings. It was comforting to have another living thing there with me.

  'Hello comrade,' I said. 'Brothers together on this ledge at the bottom of the cliff sticking out into the sea.' The gull stretched its wings, made a squawk, hopped a little closer to me and then attacked my leg, viciously picking at the area where there was blood. 'Bugger off,' I yelled and hit out at it. 'Bugger off.' The gull jumped up into the air, hovered and squawked, this attracted about half a dozen more gulls on to my ledge, there were also six or seven hovering in the sky, just above me, squawking. 'Piss off,' I yelled. Two or three gulls made a dash for my leg, I waved my arms about trying to frighten them away but the fracas attracted even more, there were about twenty or more gulls hovering above my head and at least a dozen on my ledge, just beyond my arm's reach.

  Then, all of one mind, the gulls rushed at me from every direction, I thrust my arms about to try to protect myself and pulled my leg up under me. I picked up a rock and threw it at the gulls, they flew up into the air, squawked and then landed back on my ledge. I looked around for a weapon, I found an old bit of driftwood and I waved that around above my head as an improvised club. There were about fifty or more gulls now circling and squawking. They moved in for the kill. I swung my club in a great circle and hit nothing, one very adventurous gladiator flew straight at my face and half a dozen more flew at my body, they were vicious. The mob had swollen, at a rough guess, to a hundred birds, the situation seemed to be fairly desperate but somewhere, around the cliff and out of sight, another gull squawked and my assailants flew up into the air in one dark angry mob and were gone. That's the problem with feeding wildlife, if you don't have any food for them they might eat you instead.

  My chest hurt, my leg hurt but I had discovered, during my pitched battle with the gulls, that nothing was broken. Top priority now was to clean up my wounds. I crawled to the edge of my ledge and then glided over rocks and grass and seaweed, on my stomach, to the water's edge. A great wave crashed onto the shore and swamped me, it was cool, clean and refreshing and as it rushed back out to sea it became more than cool, clean and refreshing it turned into a giant vacuum and sucked my body out into deep water. The words oh God what next? flashed through my brain.

  I was in a deep, turbulent, dark swelling and foaming mass that was sucking me into even greater depths. The giant waves flung me back towards the rocks and then sucked me back out into their deep, dangerous gullet. I had a lungful of seawater, seaweed, sea salt, and God knows what else. I was flapping around in the turbulence, I went under, swallowed more of the dreadful salty stuff, it went up my nose and I choked on it, spluttered on it and even vomited on it. The sea was playing with me, I was dragged under and then my head burst through the boiling surface, I gulped a mouthful of air, it was lovely stuff but a bucketful of seawater went down into my lungs with it. I coughed and spluttered and went under again.

  For the second time in as many days, my life flashed before my eyes. First day at school, first kiss, first road accident. This was becoming a habit. I was waiting for the inevitable when I was thrown out of the water, into the air and managed a second breath of air, this time without the seawater. I decided my only chance was to body surf, there were mighty rocks in front of me and the waves were breaking viciously onto them but as several large waves coalesced into a mega wave this picked up my body, sucked me out to sea and then hurled me at the sharp, dagger like rocks. The wave broke with an almighty crash, white spray and foam breaking high up the rock face. I hit something with a great thud and my back was none too happy, water poured into my nose, mouth and any other orifice that was available. I choked and spluttered as the wave receded and left me on my ledge, shaken but not stirred. I was safe for the moment but I had to move quickly, another wave caught me but I fought and battled, I dug in and held on to my ledge until the wave reseeded.

  The blood was gone, I was clean but my wounds stung from the salt water. Much worse now than the wounds however, was my thirst. My mouth was as dry as a desert, my tongue felt like a great fat lump of dried up old leather. I had no saliva and I couldn't believe how dry my mouth was, it felt like water was draining away from it into the interior of my body. I think I would have drunk seawater, I was so desperate, but I was saved by little pricks of stinging pain. It hit me on the face, I looked up, a few wild fast moving clouds were speeding towards the cliff and they were raining. Water, sharp vicious lovely water hit at my face and hands, I stood with my head up and my mouth open, relief was slight and momentary but those slight little stabs of water were wonderful.

  Then the rain thundered down, I formed a cup with my hands and fed water into my mouth, little rock pools of fresh water formed amongst the rocks that jutted out into the sea and I went from rock pool to rock pool sucking in the water, my thirst was insatiable. I drank and drank every single drop of fresh water I could find and some not so fresh. For half an hour the rain thundered down, I was cold but didn't care, I drank water, more and more water and then the rain stopped as quickly as it had begun. I sat down exhausted.

  I was a mess, my clothes were ripped and filthy, my body was raw with flesh wounds, my bones and muscles ached and I was sitting almost in the sea at the bottom of a sheer cliff that rose straight up for two hundred meters above my head. My position looked fairly hopeless, I waited for my life to start flashing before my eyes again but it didn't, obviously my time wasn't up yet, instead a New Zealand fur seal dived out of the sea and came and sat on the ledge next to me. I sat perfectly still and looked at it. It was a smooth, streamlined, beautifully formed, dog like sea being with whiskers and a lovely smile. I just looked and looked, eventually it rolled over and went to sleep. I did the same.