SUSAN FLETCHER
The Silver Dark Sea
Table of Contents
The Giants and what became of them
The Wild Sheep and the Stormy Night
The Imps at the Farm called Wind Rising
The Sly Tide, or the Perigean Spring Tide, or the Highest Tide of all
The Nurse and the Wasted Heart
The Twins, the Fishman, and the Lighthouse-Keeper’s Son
The Widow and the Man from Sye
The Stranger, Celia and the Night-Time Sea
The Woman with the Inland Life
From the reviews of The Silver Dark Sea
The Fishman of Sye
Once, there was a man. He was bearded and kind. He lived on an island in a stone-walled house with a tap that dripped, and a small peat fire. He had no friends to speak of. All his family were gone.
In his youth, he had been strong. He’d carried hay bales in one hand and lifted bags of grain up into the highest rafters. His farm had been neat and his pigs were fat; his shoulders browned in good weather. A handsome man, also. He loved a girl with sun-coloured hair and sometimes she’d smile as she passed him, so that his heart fluttered and his mouth ached. But above all else, he was shy. He’d blush when he heard her name; he’d stumble and not speak for days. She is too pretty, he thought to himself. And in time the sun-haired girl went away. She married another and the seasons blew on. Time passed. His beard greyed.
In the evenings he’d think of her. He’d sit by the fire and say I am old, now. How did it happen? The years had gone too quickly. His life had flown by, leaf-dry.
No children, no wife.
What a small life …
One night he was so sad he could not sleep. The loss kept him wide-eyed. He lay on his back, stared at the ceiling; the sea unfolded in the dark. And the day that followed, he left his home. He walked to the north of the island where the grass was wind-bent, where the skies were fast and the sea thundered. Why was he here? He didn’t know. But the wind tugged at his coat and foam skittered across the cold sand and the gulls above him called out no! No! He found himself on a stony shore.
I am so tired, he thought. I am so tired of being me. I am tired of being alone.