The Altered Sky
I was the only one who could see it. It took me a while to realise. It was noon, a hot and bright Saturday in summer. The sea had been turned lapis by the generous sky. Children were enjoying ice creams; teenage boys with unbuttoned shirts serenaded girls with acoustic guitars; the elderly had taken their places on the deckchairs, sunhats or handkerchiefs shielding them from the molten light. An intrepid few were swimming, though the sea had retained its chill. I was walking along the clifftops. Every few meters, I would pass a concrete post. Each one came up to just below my chest. Although once they had stood straight and implacable, they now mostly leaned towards the cliff’s edge. I wondered if any had ever become entirely unfastened, plummeting downwards to ruin a day, or a life. Between them were threaded thin, rusting, though sturdy metal wires. I preferred to think of this not as a fence, but rather as a network of pylons, carrying energy or information from sources and