Writings




Gazing into the distance


Statue Number 82: Crosby beach in the year 2055



(NB For a photograph of the Crosby beach steel men by Antony Gormley see: http://www.antonygormley.com)

I'm sure there were a hundred of us once long ago. Now there's just me, number 82. Where did the others go? Did they creep off while I wasn't looking? Am I not good enough for them? Didn't my posture live up to the ideal for gazing into the distance?

We were all strong, I remember that. We had a cast-iron constitution as they say. But our strength was not of the active sort. Not that "man of steel" type who claims to fly around the world righting wrongs. Our job was much more profound. We had to stand there on Crosby beach gazing. Not waiting for an invasion force like Nazi gun boats or hoping to fend off a Viking horde. Just gazing. We didn't even speak much; well I say "much", it would have been more truthful to say "at all"
A few clanging thoughts may have flitted through our hollow skulls from time to time, but they couldn't really be expressed in words, so there wasn't really anything to say.

I rather liked number 29 on my right, he had a romantic far away look in his eye sockets, but I couldn't find the right words. Maybe number 29 would have stayed if I had said something? But I'll never know now. They've all gone. Why?
I couldn't stand number 48 on my left, his attitude was far too stiff. I'm glad he's gone, but I'd have liked to say "goodbye and thank goodness". And yet he's gone too, without a word. Why?

I remember a seagull. Yes that was when we were all here. That seagull was our nemesis it seemed. It kept dive bombing us, especially me, as if we had something for it to eat. Honest! An ice cream cornet or a fish never adorned our lifeless hands, despite its insistence. We weren't there for that, although, of course, we never knew what we were there for. And that stupid bird kept on coming, pecking at our sockets and investigating our protuberances lower down.
Perhaps he thought that those extensions were juicy worms or something?

But that was 50 years hence. I remember the sea used to lap around our toes in the good old days, when there were 100 of us. But now it regularly washes my solitary chin. My lower protrusion rusted off a few decades ago. I remember when it parted from the rest of me. I think I heard a distant thump and the crazed scream of a passing crab, but I didn't have the strength to apologize!

Things don't look good now though. Is it possible for a creature such as me to drown? My lips are rarely dry and my nostrils are often filled with that wretched salty water that deprived me of my manhood? Perhaps my upper protrusion will follow the fate of the lower one? I dodt fikk dat's fuddy!

And still I gaze into the distance. Am I the only one left carrying out this solemn duty? I think the others left me all on my own on purpose. But maybe they were carried off to some distant shore involuntarily. Maybe the solemn duty of gazing into the distance requires many locations? Maybe I was left here and the others have been posted equally alone on other beaches? Maybe seagulls elsewhere are investigating the holes and protrusions of my former colleagues. Maybe some higher power requires this of us?

Sometimes I stands and finks
And sometimes I just gently rusts . . .

© D W Solomons 2005