The Hut LIVE

The Hut lies beyond the auld groin. The rotting sea timbers: barnacled planks, shrivelled posts, cut a shadowy black swathe through the estuarial slime. It is dusk. The man-sucking, gooey, grey fermenting morass of ragworm-infested mud flats stretches as far as the eye can see. They are lying beyond the groin: as seen at low tide. I see them, squatting on its carbon strip of rock.

The moon rises over rivulets of silver which streak like opaque fissures through the muck and murk until they reach the flat, calm, pale vellum sea. The Hut lies past the groin. I move closer to the Hut. Just a boy. Standing on a concrete quay. Staring at a Hut which lies beyond an auld groin. At twilight. I wonder who lives inside the Hut? And, why? I will not rest until I find out.

Just a boy. A mother’s boy. A sensitive child. Her suckle baby. My mother is a Sea Witch. At eventide, the distant shore is but a dark horizon, an occasional twinkling fairy light, vanishing. As weary folk draw their curtains on yet another bleary day spent in the soporific company of the sea.

Folk say my mother is the She-Witch. I draw the milk from her full breast, my teal eyes staring in loving admiration of my mother’s blushing face. As I gurgle, lick, and slurp on one of her 3 burnt caramel nipples, melding myself to her breast, suckling on her teat, drinking her creamy milk.

I am her sensitive boy-child. Her suckling pig-baby. And I am 12 years-old!

I feel her index finger gently unlatching my lips, holding my head still, fondly stroking my wavy brown hair as she lemon-wipes her nipples, my mouth, then folds her heavy breasts into her bra. I perk up, sit on her lap, her soft cheese curd-fattened elfin sprite, gorged to repletion.

‘Mother?’ I say to her, eyeing her curiously, like her nine-times-dead, black witch’s cat.

‘Yes, Child.’

She’s busy, buttoning up her rose petal blouse, tucking fatty folds of flab inside her woollen skirt, concealing her middle-aged spread within the conspicuous, gaudy pleats of patterned silk.

I suck my thumb. Suck my thumb! When I’m put to sleep in my cot! When I say,

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘Your Father’s busy pleasuring young women,’ she replies, shortly, ‘Now I think it’s time for bed, don’t you, Child?’

‘No!’ I cry, ‘I am not going to bed! It’s twilight! I want to see the Hut! I must see the Hut!’

‘What did you say? Why, I’ll clip your ear, wash your gob with soap and water, Insolent Child!’

I claw at her face, feeling her soft, puffy cheeks tearing under my fingernails. I claw her eyes, and draw blood. Strips of raw flesh hang, like shredded minced beef, from my bloodied fingers. I push my sea witch’s ugly head hard against the stone wall. Her raven head cracks like a raw egg, spraying blood yolk at the white-stone. I sit up, perked, climb out of my mother’s blood-soaked lap, stand, and sprint to the wrought-iron handled, oaken door.

A chill sea breeze slaps my pallid face. I smart as the driving rain stings my eyes. Look back at the lamplight. The afterglow of burning flames! Where I smashed the oil lamp on the floor. The driving rain fills my lungs. I cough, sputter, and choke. But I won’t stop running until I reach the Hut. The rain stops falling.

I marvel at the nightscape, the grey band of rainclouds suspended over the darkening navy sky. The faint, holly-green shadows of the far-off shore. Flat, calm, brackish water. An auld groin. A coal-black strip.

The Hut, glowing, in the moonlight!

I climb down off the damp sea wall, cross the quay, and jump, flexing both knees to break my fall as my red tennis pumps hit the canker surface. A chill wind ravages my face red raw, bluing my running nose. I crunch my way towards the Hut.

The Hut stands on four stumpy struts. It has two parts! A dingy, oily, part with slime-smeared windows. And a brilliant white cube, a box with a brightly-lit lookout portal, and blue felt roof. A gangway, no steps, just a glistening ramp, like a slide in a children’s playground, leads my widening eyes up one side of the struts to the dingy part. The ramp has its own rusty handrail.

I haul myself up the slope, using every ounce of strength in my feeble arms, dragging my legs behind me: floppy guy’s legs. I slip and slide, stumbling on the seaweed-slick surface, falling to my knees. Halfway up the slide, I lose my grip, and slither down its length, grazing my bare knees on the razor-sharp grit. The thick green woolly socks, mother knitted for me, slink down my calves to my ankles. My sandals scuff. My grey shorts saturate with grime. My stripy tee- shirt is soaking wet. I am shivery-cold. Wretched!

I want to go and dry myself by her fire. I sit up, perked, and stare the length of the shady quay: its inert cranes, the malting tower, a barley store, some full sacks. In the distance, I see my Sea Witch, burning brightly. Her arms outstretched. A human fireball trapped in a white-box tomb.

I feel no guilt. She controlled me. Never let me out. Taught me at home. Said I wouldn’t need to go to school. I think of the faceless man who deserted us when I was only four. She taught me how he left her, at twilight. For the Hut.

It is dark. Silent. I stare at the ghostly bundles nestled on the flats. White mute swans. A black swan. Mallards, nestling on the flats. The silence is broken by the searing cry of the Sea Witch, as she perishes in the flames.

I stand, my child’s face set like granite, in renewed determination. Slowly, I haul myself up the slide until I reach the dingy part. There’s a narrow walkway! It circles the grime-daubed metal wall. The blacked-out windows. I press my body, flat, against its slippery surface, and edge my way around, careful not to look over my shoulder at the drop. The dingy part is empty, lifeless.

I feel the raised surface, a cold steel rail, a rung, my second rung. I climb the ladder, the wind beating my back, flaying my cheeks, chilling me to the bone. A shining light beams out above my head. Evaporating in the darkness! Lighting one whitened wall of their box! I clamber up, onto the curtain surrounding the brilliantly-lit cube.

I edge towards the light. Its warmth. The steaming vapour, the gleaming bottle-green broth! The mystical briny elixir!

I enter the Hut!

I wonder who lives inside the Hut tonight?

And why?

They squirm and wriggle in their life-giving briny mulch! Their wet hair is aflame with red, auburn, ginger, teak, blonde, cascading over their shoulders, caressing their breasts! Some of them lie in the throes of love’s tender embrace! Others stay still in each other’s slender arms! Kissing! Occasionally, flipping, a scaly tail! Some of their tails stand erect!

I smell their musk! Primordial scent! They slide over each other’s bodies! A mess of massaging fish!  I hear them, keening for one another! The sirens sing their shrill, joyous, song of love!

The tide will rise. The Hut will drown. Their mating ritual over, they will swim off in magical shoals, far out to sea… where we can never hurt them.

I entered the Hut…     

… and found where Mermaids go to make love!

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