Welcome back to the daily prompts. The second for the week.
A pier with the moon rising: a picture prompt
The throb of the bass followed me to the esplanade, pushing me along like an insistent hand at my back. Past midnight, and the holiday-makers had long exchanged their sun-drenched drowsiness on the sand for livelier frolics in dimmed bars.
The wide concrete walk took me to the pier where the bass yielded to the lazy slap of water against barnacled wooden piles. A blue and silver moon crouched on the horizon, summoning energy in the enervating stickiness to lift itself further.
It beckoned me forward and I went, slowly, enjoying a sudden languor, a lazy holiday carelessness. I walked by the railing, stopping occasionally under a yellow lantern to gaze into the silver-coated swellings of the sea.
I had reached the end of the pier when I heard it. An ethereal singing, high, sweet, with a melody which gently fell and lifted in harmony with the lethargic waves. I stood with my hands on the rail, eyes closed, head lifted, letting the song fill me with a visceral longing.
I didn’t search for the source, for I knew what it was, and knew too that any searching would send the singers fleeing. It was a long time before the waves reclaimed their status as the sole sounds of the night. And when they did, I opened my eyes and allowed myself a glimpse of seashell decorated hanks of dark hair as thick as ropes floating on the water, and the slap of glistening tails diving to their homes.
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