Brothers Apart

Tonight the wind off the ocean has teeth of ice, and a damp that finds its way into the very marrow of limbs. I shrug deeper into the collar of my jacket and mount my bicycle, bracing myself for the cold journey home. As I steer away from town and downhill towards the bay, the road beneath me turns to a blur of glistening black marble, reflecting the soft yellow of street lamps above. Salt and rotting kelp fill my nostrils, calming me after a long night behind the bar. Now the world here is empty, silent, and I share it only with shadows.

I ride on.

The low stone wall bordering the road disappears behind me, now empty of gulls and families sharing chips wrapped in paper. I feel like a seabird, gliding silently through the dark, focused, purposeful, as the dull roar of the waves rushes towards me from beyond the sand.

And I remember.

I remember sitting on the breakwall looking out to sea, sharing fish and chips with a best friend and laughing as we tried to describe the curvature of the wave in the most poetic terms. The days were warm then, and seemed to stretch on endlessly into the distance — time itself was slowed down. And with nothing more to do than enjoy the holidays, we would spend countless hours in the company of the ocean, fishing off the edge of the pier, swimming around the headland, testing our limits against its vast power. We felt that we could just touch the edge of its mystery, and learned a respect that curled its way deep into our being, taking root in dark silence.

The ocean was our home, our teacher, as we grew into men. We lived and breathed the intoxicating experience of it: the bite of damp wind preceding a storm, the acrid smell of rotting flesh on the beach after high tide, the eternal susurrus of its breathing, silence beneath the surface — the very scent of it soaked into our hair and skin.

I ride on.

I’ve left behind the lights of town, and pass through dark fields of the surrounding farmland, my path turning away from the sea. Beside me I can feel the looming presence of the forest, invisible in the dark: I can trace the damp, earthy scent of wood and grass and moss.

As the road begins to climb the screech of a barn owl startles me, and echoes of another memory find their way into my thoughts.

Like brothers we travelled. Bonded in our shared passions, we grew closer exploring new countries, both desperately eager to leave behind the mess of our early adult lives. We read to each other on trains, ate cheese, bread and jam in parks, devoured pizza under ancient stone, stood inspired together at concerts, our appetites for new experiences voracious and insatiable — we wanted to taste everything this bright world had to offer.

And I would have followed you anywhere.

We had spent two days and two nights aboard the ferry — wild, chaotic, and unrestrained. Our spirits high, fuelled by available duty-free alcohol, we felt we owned that ship for those few days and nights. Felt like kings or vikings, churning through the darkest of seas.

Storms engulfed the ship, and we were the only souls above deck, lashed by icy rain, but determined to remain above, to brave the elements. We smoked thin cigarettes in-between sips of drink to keeps ourselves warm, sharing a headphone each and singing into the wild dark. More than once our chairs careened dangerously close to the edge as we spun like skittles across the slick deck, and for a moment we contemplated the plunge to the waves below and our own fragility.

At the storm’s peak we sheltered inside, retreating to the cinema and laughing uproariously as the pitching of the vessel tossed us across the deserted room, the film mostly forgotten in the chaos. And still we felt like kings.

I ride onwards, upwards now, climbing.

I am enveloped by thick sea mist, rising up over cliffs, and I can taste the salt once more, hear the muffled thunder of waves against stone far below. With the wind at my back the climb is easier as I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with cold.

A photo still sits at home, of a tiny figure silhouetted against the misty horizon, obscured by rain. We came here years ago, to these mighty cliffs, and I watched you lean out to the very edge of the rock with nothing between you and the hungry ocean battering the rocks below, as you dared yourself to hold on and not to slip.

Here I held you through the fraught experience of coming out to your family from the other side of the world. Afterwards we got drunk together, raiding the minibars of empty rooms in the hotel, and I told you that nothing had changed between us.

But how could I say that now, when you are so far away, but only a few short hours?

We had often discussed an idea you had, a thesis, of the importance of honourable pursuits in men. Where is that now, in your life as a young lawyer? Your friends now, many and varied, seem without heart, too consumed with their wealthy lives and the status bought by expensive wine, where appearance is perhaps more than everything to them.

I see you, smiling and unfulfilled, as you leave behind those who helped shape you.

How far have you drifted from the friend with whom I shared my darkest, my most vulnerable, my most passionate, creative, inspired?

I watched you run through stone arches at night, having reached the strange conclusion that observing the world briefly and at high speed allowed a deeper perception of your surroundings. On reflection it seems that this is still how you live your life — fast paced, with the briefest of intense glimpses of the world passing by. And in my languid patience I still wonder: what about depth? How can depth be understood through such brevity of perception?

Where now is the young man who shared a stolen cigar in the shadow of a cathedral, the gregarious conversationalist, lighting up a room with the depth of your insight, your passion and creativity, and your smile? Where is the writer, the chef, the audiophile, intent on devouring life until you were dripping, saturated with your experiences?

In the dark I sink to the ground and weep, and my tears are consumed by the impenetrable black maw of the night.

Where are you, my brother?