Words For Wednesday

From The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman:

On clear summer days, Janus seemed to stretch up right to it’s tiptoes: you’d swear it’s higher out of the water at some times than at others, not just because of the rising and ebbing of the tide. It can disappear altogether in rainstorms, disguised like a goddess in a Greek myth. Or sea mists brew: warm air heavy with salt crystals which can obstruct the passage of the light. If there are bushfires, the smoke can reach even this far out, carrying thick, sticky ash which tints the sunsets lavish red and gold, and coats the lantern-room glazing with grime. For these reasons the islands need the strongest, brightest of lights.

From the gallery, the horizon stretches forty miles. It seems improbable to Tom that such endless space could exist in the same lifetime as the ground that was fought over a foot at a time only a handful of years ago, where men lost their lives for the sake of labeling a few muddy yards as “ours” instead of “theirs,” only to have them snatched back a day later. Perhaps the same labeling obsession caused cartographers to split this body of water into two oceans, even though it it impossible to touch an exact point at which their currents begin to differ. Splitting. Labeling. Seeking out otherness. Some things don’t change. (page51)

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