The old man arrived at the bench out of breath but he did not sit. Always next to him, his dog of black and white wagged her tail and panted. The sun was rising and it cast its orange into the new sky and old sea. The man ran his hands along the wood of the bench and then knocked it with his knuckle. He thought of those thick clunking boots against the rocking deck.
He sat down and the dog followed, jumping up to lay down and rest her chin on the old man’s lap and they watched the morning scene unfold as it always did.

‘Remember the first time I took you out there? You were just a pup. So nervous. But by the end of the day you had as sturdy legs as I. Four of them!’ A hundred feet below the waves crashed into rock casting salt into the air and filling the old man’s nostrils with as much as pride as memories. ‘Pity “sturdiness” can entail an eventual collapse.’ He looked down at his dog. She had closed her eyes and he decided to do the same, content in the natural static that surrounded them both.