The Man in the Storm

I am governed by an image of a picture that is hung in the galleries of my mind. An entire room is devoted to it, with high white ceilings and acres of floor. A man stands on a cliff's edge above a riotous sea huge with waves; a storm has conquered the earth, black shades of grey in a sky ripped by lightning. He stands staring across the water, a rolling land of beaten hills behind him, hair streaming out in whipped wet tails from his aquiline face; his eyes are sharp and appear to be looking intently at something, distant and far-removed, on the horizon of the sea. Fragility has been taken from his form ' he encompasses the strength of man in his rigid limbs.

A house is visible behind him, nestled in the stark landscape. The windows are black and the roof is being pulled away by the gale, tiles flying off to mix with the lashing rain. The picture is a silent image, but I sense the chaos of sound in his ears: the whistling wind, thunder booming, shaking the roots of the cliff, the waves crashing immensity dying in anger as they hit the stoic land.

Who this lone figure is I do not know, nor what draws his attention out to that terrifying sea. I have returned time and time again to the picture, and the storm rages on forever and the man never moves from his watch on the cliff, the landscape eternally ravaged by the tumult. But I have come to realise that he grows older with me, this tragic character, his hair is now grey at the temples, his face more lined, aging in the landscape that is neither night nor day, that is devoid of any life or purpose other than that which glows in his eyes. I am meant to do something perhaps, and I long to understand the meaning. If I could just make out what it is in the sea, so far away, that holds him rapt and immovable, then a truth would be known.

But then I imagine what it would be like if he were in you, not I ' in the collection of exuberant masterpieces that comprise your own mental gallery. He would be hung in a corridor amongst oils of revolutionary bands marching, symbolising your own pulling away, opposite a daguerreotype of a river with a lone woman washing face and hands. You would examine him occasionally, with a kind of detached interest, noting his similarity to me and the intent look in his eye.

If he were in you he would finally leave his post, the storm subsiding in an evening of awakening ' birds would take to the skies and the sun tip the far-flung ocean like a rebirth of all wonder. The beaten, forlorn man on the cliff would cease his watch and the object out in the sea, be it bobbing head or fallen scarf, would be left to drift on to oblivion, the storm having washed away all its wilted significance.