The sea lapped calmly at my ankles. That was what brought me around. In front of me I could see nothing but the rippling expanse and the puffy white horizon, smothered by clouds. I was suspended from the rocks, I soon realised. Metal shackles bit into my ankles and wrists, holding me tight on the smooth surface of a cliff face. What had I done to end up here?
As the day went on and the sun emerged from its bed of clouds, the sea level rose. My ankles stung from the salt as the shackles rubbed my skin raw.
To my horror, I was shocked out of my irritancy by a scream. Looking up, I saw a man, clawing at the air as he fell. The silence that followed made me cry out. Where his body had landed the sea churned, briefly revealing rows of sharp rocks. My lip quivered as a pool of red tainted the dull, grey waterscape. I cried out for help.
Nothing. Not for an hour.
I called out again for help. A woman’s shrieking answered me. As she hit the water, soon swallowed, I was sorry. Sorry I ever asked for help. I didn’t want to see anymore.
I screamed and screamed and screamed when her body bumped into my feet, kicking her away in a spray of crimson seawater. I became so short of breath that my consciousness faded.
“He’s coming to!” I heard, on the cusp on regaining my senses. “Quick, get the easel, I’ll grab the paints and brushes.
As my eyes opened and I sat up, I relished the hard ground beneath me, the absence of the sea. A brush was placed in my limp hand.
“Go on, paint!”
I was an artist. Beachy Head; the suicide spot. I’d asked to be chained there, under the cover of night. Nobody’s ever seen what I’ve seen. The descent, the last glimpse of life before the rocks claimed it. Now they could.
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