The Storm

The storm raging, she threw everything she had got at me, like an angry fishwife throwing a pot at her husband because he's late home and the dinner is ruined.

I stood stoic. I had been here for close to a hundred years and nothing was going to move me now, especially a little Miss who was more bark than bite.

The rattle of my windows was another shot across the buoys, another effort of hers to gain my attention. For if she had my attention she would draw me to her violent frothing and I had seen plenty of that from the drunken fishermen of the day. Unable to handle their grog, they would spew forth and cover me with their careless actions.

Changing tactic, she parted her waves and tried to entice me in. But I was no newcomer. I had seen many lost to her; entranced by the rhythmic beauty of her sapphire splendour. Fooled into losing their heart and dragged deep within her depths.

Gone.

One moment, proud and full of life then the next no more.

Now I say this as though this was instantaneous and that would be to lead you down the wrong path.

No, first she tortured them, then ripped them apart and then she claimed her prize. Where they had once stood, there just remained rocks, no shadow of their essence.

Gone.

Ripped cruelly away and 'Poof,' now you see them, now you don't. I wanted to be no-one's magic trick, not least that of a she devil dressed as life.

Aye life. Because what is truly more associated with life than water. Yet, this lady, was a soul taker not a giver of gifts.

Only when she truly raged as she did now, did her true temperament show. Oh how she raged. She spewed her waves at least twenty feet high and then she would retract. Regroup. Rebuild her strength and then have another go.

Thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

Each time she went away, she returned stronger. 

I could feel her at my feet grasping for purchase. But not I. No, not I. 

I would not surrender to her. I had been around for many years. I had worn many a facade. I was old, yes and my body was failing, yes. 

But my spirit. Well my spirit reigned as supreme as the day I came into being. 

In my spirit I am not old. In my spirit I am not worn. In my spirit I am not downtrodden.

No; in my spirit I retain my youthful vigour. I am strong, splendid, a fine specimen some might say.

And so I fight. I fight for another day on this earth. Reigning supreme in this corner of the world.

In my mind my walls are new, not crumbled. In my mind my windows sparkle, they are not cracked. In my mind my door is open; the visitors spilling out of me with joyous delight.

I am a proud house. I am a strong house. I will not succumb to the will of my evil mistress. I will remain another day.