Running interference

I'm on the familiar shore of a familiar sea just now. But I miss my river. The sullen muddy river with its tides and drowned shopping trolleys and bikes. It doesn't freeze, but the harbour does. Then the graceful and scornful swans waddle on frozen bits of water which cave under their weight. But its by the rivers banks that the cormorants swallow eels and the apples grow and I run, sometimes.

I missed the sea once, and still do but not this sea. Some mythical sea, where there is only the sound of the sea but none of traffic or people. Some mythical seashore on which there is a little girl who still waits for the gulls that are rare and come only in the winters.

Copyright © Natasha Mhatre If you're reading this without attribution to me anywhere other than at my blog Talking Pictures, its probably being plagiarized.