cliff and reef (my life is as full without you)

colour pencil and water colour on paper
210 x 297 mm

detail 1

detail 2

The anemone and the sea

"My life is as full without you," says the anemone to the retreating sea.

The rock pool in which he was stuck was still filled to the brim at that hour of the morning. The water was fresh and full of lives which though invisible to human eyes were all too obvious to other creatures. 

"My life is full," says the anemone, as he lazily snag one of the darting lives with one of his waving tentacles and brought it to his mouth.

"My life is full," says the anemone as he retracted a tentacle from the snapping pinchers of a flower crab.

"My life is full," says the anemone, looking up at the now stilled surface of the rock pool. Overhead, very high above, the sky has lightened.

Lives went on pretty much the same in the rock pool after the tide retreated as when it was when the area was fully submerged under water. If anything, it was in a sense safer for the anemone because there was no fish nipping at his tentacles. Of course there was also no new and novel tasting morsels brought up by the churning water. 

"But you can't have everything," shrugs the anemone, or anyway he tries.

"My life is full," the anemone says, reaching out a tentacle with effort to snag the last of the darting lives. 

Moments earlier, a monkey has darkened his universe and reached in to snatch up the flower crab. The water surface has stilled after that invasion. But he still shivered a little remembering the busy crunching sound afterwards. He was happy that the flower crab will no longer be around to menace his tentacles, yet he was sad too. Although the flower crab was not exactly a nice neighbour, she was familiar and she did add a bit of life to his world.

"My life is full," murmured the anemone, extending his tentacles fully again.

The water level has fallen. Water has been seeping continually through a fissure in the rock. The crack is minute and the seepage was imperceptible except to the most observant in the slightly more brilliant colours of the pebbles immediately surrounding the path of the water.

There's no more darting lives. The water has gone stale and warm under the sun.

"My life is as full without you," says the anemone, more as a matter of habit than anything else.