The beach was the nexus between the sky, ocean and earth, a ribbon of sand with a skirt of waves. Two people walked along it, one supporting the other like a father and child, or perhaps a son with his aged father. The wind scratched their skin and the sea murmured ceaselessly.

The woman had abandoned them, unconcerned now that the migratory cycle was ending, or beginning. A creature of instinct and change, she flew to find the flock, the last of her kind gliding in the vaults of the sky or sleeping in the barren nest below. The raging sky bubbled and heaved, sluicing rain along the rocky coast.

Where were they? He couldn’t work it out and looked across the sea to find an answer. In the misty distance he could make out the spires and turrets of a lost city. Somewhere deep inside he recalled this memory but he realized that it might not have happened to him yet. He was lost in time.

Now he sat naked on the sand watching lost souls struggling in the currents of existence, only just managing to keep their heads above water. Gulls cried and the waves whispered that he should come and join them but he demurred. In an imperfect world this would have to do.