a town with nothing to do. a weekend free from school but no place to go. so we would meet at the wall in the high street and chat. there was no pre-arranged time. it was just an expected occurrance. i’m not sure how it started. just one day we were in town, opposite Boots, fizzy drinks in hand. there was a wall so we sat. it wasn’t a particularly notable wall rather the result of a town planner’s unimaginative flourish to put walls with planters along the high street. red brick and grey. the type of brick beloved of councils as it is hard wearing and cheap. the plants were not something to look at being a mixture of half-dead greens and littered cigarette butts with a lone ant in search of something sticky. we sat in the sun dressed in black and surplus army greens, trousers made of layers of torn trousers, each one more torn than the first. the heat was no problem. we rolled cigarettes and talked of music, politics and campaigns whilst watching the lesser mortals shop by. the stores would close and we would saunter righteous to our homes for dinner.
Category Archives: environment
Moment 12
Last night I ate sea urchin. It tasted of the ocean. The body soaked with the tears of whales crying for the loss of their children. The warm fur of a white seal pup before it meets its end at the hand of cruelty. The plastic embrace of a shopping bag around the throat of an arctic tern. It cried for its fish brothers that nevermore would dart between its feelers searching for food. It whispered to me of lost porpoises trapped in nets raping the sea. It told of sharks too fearful to leave the sunken ships of death’s folly. I heard the boasts of old sailors swapping trinkets for lives. I stopped a moment and put the chopsticks down. Then ordered another item from the menu. One without the bitter taste.
This came about after going to a restaurant and trying sea urchin for the first time. It got me thinking about how we abuse the sea, the plastics and rubbish littered there, and the depletion of fish numbers as well as other mammals.

