Estuarine Visions

Every step I took sent pebbles sliding and rolling down towards the sea. I managed to keep my footing only by making as if always to turn up the beach towards the concrete sea wall.
It wasn't really the open sea of course, it was the estuary. The smells of salt and seaweed were thick in my nostrils and memories of a hundred seaside trips jostled for attention in my scrambled brain.
At first I thought that I had the beach to myself. I could hear traffic in the distance; I could hear the gentle surf searching through the pebbles, a million shards of pottery and time-smoothed glass; I could hear my feet, each step crunching and pushing into the treacherous hard-core shelf.
It would have been no great surprise if I had been alone. There was never a crowd down here after dark. The fiery glow of London away to the west and the hundred points of light on the Kentish coast hardly made for the most romantic of backdrops. In dramatic industrial splendour there was nothing there to rival, say, Baglan Bay, but this was certainly no Mauritius, no coral strip under a crystal moon.
Little boats bobbed at anchor in the sluggish tide and out in the channel two ships pressed on through the night. I watched them fascinated, even a rusty garbage scow could have held me entranced. I admit that I was not quite myself. Now there's a line to save for the magistrate.
I loved to wonder how this coastline must have been when the first people looked across at the distant other bank. I imagined reed-filled water margins and skies shaken by great innumerable flocks of white and grey estuary birds. It was thinking about the primordial estuary that started me considering the black night sky that must have been, and it was that that set me looking up and searching the blue-orange mess for stars still visible despite the best efforts of man. And it was looking up without stopping, sliding and turning as I went, that brought me into shocking, heart-stopping proximity with the walrus.
'What the fuck?' I said as I fell to one knee.
'A walrus' said the walrus.
'I can see that' I said, not pausing to entertain disbelief.
'I don't know how you can see me' the walrus said and shifted its bulk a little against the complaining gravel.
'I don't know how you can be here' I replied.
'I'm not really here for you' the walrus muttered a little annoyed. I could barely see its face but I think that its whiskers drooped dejectedly.
'No? I should hope not' I said, relieved without knowing why.
'Are you stoned?' the sea creature asked.
'Are you a policeman?'I said.
'No. I am a walrus.' And then the great tusked mammal paused for thought and let out an extravagant sigh that smelled of the deep ocean bed, 'well of course I'm not really a walrus. I chose to be a walrus for tonight.'
'Oh fuck' I said a propos nothing.
A ripple passed down the walrus's body as it dragged itself a little further up the beach. Its beady black eyes seemed to look past me now. 'Look I'm not being funny' it said, 'but do you think that you could move along now please?'
'You are a policeman' I replied.
'No, it's just that I have an appointment and I'd rather leave you until it's your time. My next customer is coming along behind you and this appearance,' he glanced downwards and weirdly showed off his walrus body with a little flipper shrug,'is for his benefit.'
'Oh fuck' I said, 'is this a flashback?'
He ignored my question. 'Well okay,' he admitted 'this get-up is for my benefit, it does make a change doesn't it?'
'Are you Death? Are you supposed to be Death?' I had preferred it when I had thought he was a walrus.
The walrus's eyes came back to rest on me. I could see that the vast animal was serious now. 'I am not supposed to be Death' it said, 'I am Death. It really is time for you to be moving along.'
I pushed myself back up the beach and staggered sideways, half running, around the blubbery bulk. As I went I saw what the walrus had been watching for, a disconsolate figure walking the line where the waves turned to retreat; he allowed every wave to break over his feet, he did not care. He was only thirty paces from the walrus now.
'Oh fuck' I said and backed off even faster, stumbling as I went.
The man in the surf stopped then and stared up into the dirty vault of heaven. As if as an afterthought the walrus turned to me and said somewhat apologetically 'I know that it might seem strange.'
'What?' I interupted, 'Meeting Death?'
The walrus shook his jowly head, 'No, Me being a talking walrus.'
'Now you mention it' I said, my panic rising, 'I thought you wore a black cloak and carried a scythe.'
'Is that a request? the walrus joked. 'These days I try to choose an appearance more appropriate to the place in which life ceases; it seems more sensitive.'
With that I turned and ran, each step a struggle against shifting stones and with my resurgent chemical disequilibrium.
'A walrus on the beach at Shoeburyness?' I said out loud, 'Death's more fucking stoned than I am!'