A sneak peak at 'slantways'

This Time Tomorrow

Half an hour from this time tomorrow, you will go out onto the spit again. You will take each step as the water peels back.

You’ll wade in, then watch your feet dry as the tide recedes. Move as far as you dare into the low waves rolling up the bank, see the light crystallise the eddies to almost solid, then watch them disappear.

You will find that the way opens out to you. That you will not be cut off and left for dead, your children crying for their mother, your husband scanning the horizon forevermore.

In so many ways, it’s that simple. The more you walk here the more you know the tides, the play of wind and gravity, and land. The less you know you understand.

Patricia Debney