Three Strangers on a Coastal Path

They strolled from a red-sanded Devon shore, past fields of goatish sheep, up a hill where thrift bloomed, down a road that would become sea at high tide, beside railway tracks where trains rumbled, to a town where a fairground blazed with unspoken memories.

They strode from a red-sanded Devon shore scattered with shards of shells and bones, past fields of goat-like sheep, up a steep hill where they met a stranger with hair like petalled thrift, and had opened their mouths to check they were on the right path when the woman asked where they’d been, and they described the town where black swans swam in a tamed brook that dreamt of flooding fields and homes; they heard echoes of the Celtic words for ‘Devil Water’ in the town’s name and shivered despite the sun.

They meant to ask the woman about the town she’d walked from, but instead hurried down a road that high tide would swallow, by the railway track where trains roared like dragons, and they reached a fairground that shrieked with buried memories.

They raced from a red-sanded Devon shore scarred with fragments of prehistoric seas, past fields of goat-skulled sheep, up a hellish hill where they encountered a stranger with petalled hair the fey purple of a fading bruise; when they drew breath to check they were on the right path, the woman asked what they’d left behind and they described Dawlish, where black swans tenanted a trapped brook that yearned to flood; whispers of the Celt for ‘Devil Water’ in the town’s name shook tree branches and they shivered.

They should have asked the woman about the town she’d walked from; instead, they pushed on down a road that would transform with high tide, beside a track where dragons thundered, and they found a fairground that screamed as memories bubbled below the surface.

And the woman remembered for them: a child lost and scared as the sun sank over a Ferris wheel, a teenager trembling with the discovery kisses could be stolen, a life unmoored and dreams dammed in lost chances, and the woman wondered what they might confess to one another; whether the two lovers could become more than strangers.