{"id":401,"date":"2011-10-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=401"},"modified":"2011-10-07T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T11:00:00","slug":"nicola-teasdales-sandblasted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/nicola-teasdales-sandblasted\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicola Teasdale's 'Sandblasted'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandblasted<\/span>

Eyes trained on the distance, beyond the lighthouse, out to sea. Standing on the metal, clang and echo. Once you could slip inside through the gap, wander round, through the eerie concrete passageways, but not any more. Too grown up, too big. This used to be a machine gun post. Now it's just a remnant, a relic. Like a lot of things round here.<\/span>

You clamber down onto the parched earth and kick a stone over the cliff edge. Count one, two, three as it tumbles down to the rocks below. How long would it take a person to fall? The same or different? A hammer and a feather.<\/span>

Sitting in the grass, pulling up handfuls. The scratch and tear as the blades rip out. Soil scatters.<\/span>

If there was something to do round here it would be different. Somewhere to go.<\/span>

You take the long path round between the stacked towers of rock. That's sedimentary rock, you think, recalling science lessons. No longer connected to the mainland. Erosion. In a hundred years, will any of this still be here? Will any of it matter?<\/span>

On the beach now. The crunch and give underfoot. Dried bladderwrack gives the air a tang. Fulmars screech a warning from their perilous nests. Best not to go too near the cliffs. They have an excellent, if somewhat fishy, self defence system.<\/span>

You walk to the edge of the sea. The waves move hypnotically, swishing in, pulling out from beneath, dragging the small pebbles out to sea.<\/span>

Do not pass when the red flag is flying.<\/span>




*Nicola Teasdale<\/span> is originally from the North-East and now lives in Norwich. She is a primary school teacher, writer and mum.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SandblastedEyes trained on the distance, beyond the lighthouse, out to sea. Standing on the metal, clang and echo. Once you could slip inside through the gap, wander round, through the eerie concrete passageways, but not any more. Too grown up, too big. This used to be a machine gun post. Now it's just a remnant, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}