The seal sat on a rock looking at the sea. He was afraid of the waves, he slowly embarked upon the stones. I went up to him, to check there was no blood. Slightly fearful, I asked him what did he think of The Tree of Life? Well, he said, when I was at the cinema, people laughed at the end. They mentioned David Attenborough. Guess they were nervous, I replied. You know, modern folks become nervous when they are brought so close to nature, so close to our existence, the fug of childhood and it's pain and beauty, those half-glimpses of revelation, maybe they want to reject it. They may recoil from dinosaurs, sweet talk and Christianity, but for me there was nothing else like it; immense, perturbing your very soul.
The seal nodded, then he set off swimming, lapping up all that water, never saw him again, never did. But I can still recall his black eyes. Sleepy hopeless but warm, the summer ended with roll-up's and stares at the broken horizon. Today it was the army, tomorrow revolution.
