Velvet Blue

Marianne Pagano, S10, explores a solitary man’s coastal ritual, where a daily swim with a crocodile toy becomes a quiet act of escape and reflection.

Years of tides washing into the rounded cliffside had Piled beige, chalky rocks in growing rust-coloured hills on the sloping beach.

Watery clouds whispered across a deepening cerulean sky, stretching down to the glass surface of the sea. A lone breeze carried the memories of daylight.

Down the road that meandered along the coast, a figure walked, alone, a bulk under his arm. The waves washed placidly on to the shore, permeating the silence of the hazy summer evening. Occasionally, a seagull sent her cries echoing across the bay.

Hills of painted jade rolled along the horizon, the silken sheets of a giant’s bed. No place of rest was as peaceful as it was then. These seconds were his refuge from the other hours of the day, and he could forget all his worries.

The moment froze like a limpid view of the seabed when the water turns crystalline.

He stopped and felt the briny salt and sea on his tongue. His hair was ruffled by the passing wind, wisps of grey that stretched down to his shoulders and along his mouth, blown around his face like seaweed during a sea storm.

A fiery light suddenly pierced the sky, illuminating the clouds in shades of crimson and coral and touched the man’s tired eyes. Ephemerally, the hazel sparks returned to the dull brown. His gait slowed as he walked along the stone path. With each step he took, the object under his arm moved up and down, as if sighing. Its plastic green had faded away into a pale khaki and the colour curved down to fill four small, spiky extensions that bobbed as he walked.

It was a long, oblong shape, painted with thin white stripes and, pointing in the direction of the sea, a narrow end. A crocodile’s face, grinning wickedly, several tiny teeth lining its jaw. Its brown plastic irises stared loyally into the man’s eyes.

The crocodile was thrust down on the rocks and the man looked out to judge the water’s depth. The tide is low, he thought. Five metres.

The climb down to the water’s edge was quick; he would have managed blindfolded, using his hands as eyes over the stone made uneven by the sandpaper sea. The sandals he wore at his feet, weathered and greying, turned darker by half as he knowingly stepped onto an algae-covered platform. They were taken off, carefully, one at a time, while he balanced on the other foot, feeling the cool lap of the water.

Holding his most valuable possessions in his left hand, their Velcro straps tickling his arm, he plunged into the opaque velvet water on top of his crocodile and resurfaced soon after. The thin clothes he wore clung to him; his hair and beard were slicked against his skin, the water droplets luminous before the setting light.

Straightaway, the man was kicking effortlessly, driving them both away from the road and land and houses. All he saw was the deep teal of an evening sea, and a darkening sky that merged with the water and the horizon and the world looked like one single, imposing grace.

The residents who lived in the houses perched on the coast did not know who he was or what purpose drove him across the bay. All they knew was that the next day, just before the sun set, they would see the wispy figure along the winding road, a crocodile under his arm.