Earlier, I linger over a coffee in the cafe on the edge of George Street. I continue working on the drawing of a stag standing in an impossible tangle of undergrowth. The cafe is noisy with Sunday afternoon people, the overspill of late shoppers from the supermarket, the charity shops, the newsagents.
The coffee does not help my hangover, and a sudden storm of rain puts me in mind of floods and launderettes and petrol stations submerged in a dream-undertow, the Old Shoreham Road, only accessible now by submarines and sea monsters.
The rain clears, and the sun comes out, and I leave the cafe to it's last hour before closing.
As I intimated, I wander down to the sea.
The seafront is less busy that it would be normally, though is by no means deserted. I stand on the edges of the waves, on the stones, the pebbles, watch the spindrift horses, the choppy un-rhythms of foam and pulsing tide. The sun - low in the sky - makes the waves cast autumnal shadows. Strange clairvoyance, unreadable predictions. A presentience of times that twist away from us. Somewhere impossible.
I would have waited till it had got dark, till the city lights behind me had flickered on, but the wind is up, and drowns out the silence I wish to dwell in.
I walk home, and already it is twilight.
