Excerpt: Sowing Seeds: A Second Time Novel

Sowing Seeds: A Second Time Novel

Aftermath

Paul stood over the ruins of their little settlement, staring at the wreckage in the weak morning sunshine. Their precious wood and metal poles lay broken or bent, still held together by the ropes and pulleys that had generated power so magically from the very waters that destroyed them. He kicked at one particularly large tangle of rope and splintered wood despondently.
“Paul,” came Shelley’s voice, from down on the beach. He looked and saw her willowy figure waving and waved back.
She continued to shout, but he couldn’t make out the words. He waved and bent to pick up the tangled debris.
“Paul! Come on!” This time there was no mistaking her request, nor the urgent way she was beckoning him. Paul sighed and made his way along the cliff top towards the footpath.
The footpath, never more than a beaten track through the gorse and heather, had all but vanished in the storm. Paul had to pick his way carefully down the slope, hanging on to sturdy plants and trying not to slip. A bit of the path would appear, then vanish again under an uprooted shrub. Eventually he reached the shingled beach and looked up to get his bearings. As far as he could tell, Shelley was still standing exactly where he’d first seen her, her legs braced and hands on her hips. He began picking his way through the storm’s debris.
“I guess we’d better pick through all this flotsam, see if there’s anything we can use,” he muttered as he made his way.
As he neared his wife, he could see that she was standing oddly because of something on the ground, her feet planted to either side. Something large and grey – but everything looked grey on that stony beach and Paul couldn’t make out any details until he was almost close enough to touch and then he stopped in his tracks.
“It’s a shark,” he exclaimed.
“Funny – I thought it was a rabbit,” smiled Shelley. “I’m so glad you’re here t put me right.”
It was a weak joke, by any standards, but Paul grabbed at it with both hands, relieved that his wife could find the tiniest bit of humour from somewhere on this bleak morning.
“Is it dead?” he asked.
“Very,” she replied, kicking at the resilient grey lump. “You don’t think I’d be standing this close if there was any chance it could still bite me, do you?”
“How did it get here?” Paul realised that was an even more stupid question as it tumbled out of his mouth.
“Well. If it walked its legs have dropped off. I think it’s most likely the storm blew it ashore and it couldn’t get back into the water.” Shelley stepped over the prone fish and hugged her husband tightly.
“You reckon it’s safe to eat?”
“I reckon we’ve got no choice. Half our stores are gone and there wasn’t much there to begin with. I don’t think the possibility of a little radioactivity is going to put anyone off eating shark steaks.”