lights beside the water - part one

There were lights across the water. Maybe a mile. They just sat in silence and watched them move. The movement was slow, like clouds or waves. Nothing natural, and once or twice they swept closer. A collective gasp went round. Would they capsize?

Andre had the oars. He didn't gasp. He hardly moved. Were you watching him, which no one in the boat was, you might have seen his shoulders rise and fall ever so slightly as he breathed evenly. Meanwhile the others fidgeted and lost control of their senses. This was normal. They were seeing something they had never seen before. It provoked an instant reaction in them. 

The lights again came closer and again faded back. They sailed from east to west and disappeared behind the headland. Even then you could see them setting fire to the horizon and backlighting every building and tree all along the coastline. 

Fish were forgotten. Who could say anything that would be any kind of response to this kind of thing?

Once the lights were gone the silence was complete: like even the air had stopped moving, like even their breath had ceased to make a sound. They'd let the experience wash over him, like they'd thought the sea would. 

So many had drowned and there was so much to fear and now here was this light: larger and more assured than anything they had seen in their lives. Made the boots of the constables seem more pathetic still. Made the shined up and buffed cuffs on those uniforms look like dog piss. Such weight and majesty - like a shoal of whales, like a lone monster octopus that would, with one lazy turn, send them to their deaths. But nothing like that had happened.

It was now Andre who made a puff of his cheeks and a loud exhalation and pulled on the oars. He said "we'd have to get back soon anyway" and waited to hear what nonsense was going to pour forth.

He loved his brothers, though he'd never said anything of the sort to any of them. He even had a deep affection for the half-idiot Jep. But he lived at the edge of his tether hearing the crap they sought to spew forth constantly. Now, as their silence persisted for a few seconds more, he waited to see what theories they would have.

What they had seen defied categorisation. Nothing made light like that. A freighter? A whaling ship that had lost its way? Anything like that would be sinking before them now, in this bay there wasn't half the draft such a ship would need.

A plane? They had heard of such things. But where was the light from? Something passing over head like that - it would never have been piloted at night. And never would it have created such light.

Now they began to chat.

"We've been visited by angels" Marcel was speaking now.

This seemed as sensible as any suggestion Andre could dream up himself.