Foreshadowings - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 27

a stone along the points. They scarcely needed it: the trident was still
needle-sharp. The shank had been left square and rough to take the
cord, but the points were round, polished and perfectly tapered. Each
had four barbs, identically angled and chamfered. It had been forged
for harpooning arapaimas - among the largest freshwater fish in the
world - but I would make do with lesser prey.
Two weeks passed before I could return to the water. I paddled to
where the fish had been. But in the shifting sands in the middle of the
estuary, there is no 'where': no fixed point to which you can return.
I tracked back and forth like a dog that had lost the scent, beached the
boat, waded through the shallows, crossed the channels and circled
the pools. I saw nothing except the silvery mullet, which swirled away
as they felt the kayak approaching. The flounders had gone; the flat-
fish forum was buried under a sandbar.
Now, three years after I had first seen the osprey, I decided to try
again. There was a gentle hubbub on the beach: an ice-cream van, a
handful of cars, some children wading and splashing in the narrow
runnels trapped by the sandbars when the tide had pulled the plug.
Beyond the cars I saw a wonderful sight. An ancient woman wearing
iridescent ski goggles and a blanket over her knees was riding her
electric wheelchair at full tilt. Sand spurted from the wheels. She skid-
ded around in tight circles, jolted forward and fishtailed through the
ruts left by the cars. Someone's heart was still beating.
I looked across the rivermouth. It was dead low tide. On the sea
this would be called low-water slack, but in the estuary there is no
slack: water runs in odd directions throughout the cycle. Two broad
channels and a web of creeks, some connected, some blind, cut
through a desert of sand. Across the water the sun fell on the pastel
shades of Drefursennaidd. The boats at anchor in the lane beside the
harbour looked as bright as bath toys. The weather curtain fell half-
way up the estuary: the hills beyond were hidden behind silver sheets
of rain. It is like this for much of the year: Drefursennaidd has half the
rainfall of Llanaelwyd, ten miles inland; Llanaelwyd, in turn, has half
the rainfall of Mwrllwch, five miles to the north.
I strapped the spear to the side of the boat, rigged up an anchor,
bowlined a dry bag to one of the cleats beside the stern well, loaded