Saint Michael in Peril of the Sea

Flight

The child closes his eyes and he sees a rock with an angel on it.

Its landing has been precarious and the rock’s surface is strewn with seagull feathers.  And angel’s.  Black, white and gleaming gold mingled.

On top of the mount, the strata of the rock looks like wood and in his vision, the child considers if wood becomes stone, or stone wood and then the thought passes.  The air is still and there is no noise, apart from the keening of the gulls.

The child thinks of Saint Aubert.  Poor Saint Aubert, with his skull poked by an archangel’s finger, until he gave in.  No choice but to agree to the building of an abbey because even angels have hubris.

When it’s built at the angel's behest, like the rock it’s built with strata – the divine, then the religious, then the trade. Down below, outside the gates are the fishermen.

Life continues for them way below on the beach as they prepare to go out on the water. Making their boats sea-worthy, certain they’ll be back sooner or later. Though Peter was a fisherman, what should they care for God?  They pray for fish and industry and safe passage. But their god is salty; aquamarine. Not a deity of the clouds, but one clandestine and unknowable.  A god of the deep.

The mount is covered in mist and from the top everything looks tiny.  Around the abbey’s footings, there are the skeletons of fish, delicate and spikily perfect.  In his vision, the child wonders momentarily how fish got up so high.

Here exists the parochial and the divine.  Benediction and worship.  From the summit, the tiny, fragile plovers can be seen grubbing for molluscs and crustaceans in the sand.

And the angel closes his eyes and he sees a rock with a child on it...

Fall

The child is eating an ice cream.  He looks bored at the top of the mount.

He’s climbed so many steps. Step after step after step.  He’s asking his mother about the tides. 

“But what makes the tides?  Will the island be covered in water?  What will happen to the dogs?”

The angel watches his mother turn away and smile.  She’s patient, but he knows she wants to take in the view.

They can see for miles. Along the coast, across the winding causeway, past the Cousenon River where saltwater and freshwater mix.

The angel looks into the mother’s head and sees her pictures of the ghosts of pilgrims past, making their way across the coastal flats to the abbey.  Full of duty and fervour.  Stuck in the mud.

The child stands on his tiptoes so he can better see over the ramparts and as he balances, he drops his ice cream.  The angel isn’t convinced he didn’t do it on purpose.

But, whatever the motive, down the ice cream falls.  Past the tourists and their iPads and selfie sticks, their phones and self-regard.  Look, I was here, I was here.  Past the tour guides’ earnest history lectures and the Disney towers and over-priced omelettes.  Past the bikes and the chatter and the tacky Faience.

To land - cone-up - on the beach below, unbelievably empty in the crossover time of early evening.  On a deserted beach, you’re as alone as you can ever be, the angel thinks, particularly when the light is the golden lustre of evening.

As the child begins to cry at the loss of his ice cream, the angel opens his eyes and breathes in the ozone.  So deep, so blue.

And when his tears finally stop, the child closes his eyes and he sees a rock with an angel on it…