The Scottish Whale

She was in this spot yesterday.

We stood in yellow raincoats staring at the black water, rain and wind shelling its surface. Jackson Pollock white water spray. The engine was cut and the small boat creaked and bobbed.

You’re looking for her coming up for air.

Eyes darted between squalls - studying the surface of the sea - waiting for an Instagram story. But that whale held her breath.


The yellow coats huddled together in soaked silence for hours. Couples, families, friends and then me - the guy looking like he needed the whale the most.

I’d started driving a few days before, stopping in a Travellodge that had stopped even trying to be habitable. I dumped my stuff and drove a few miles to Gordale Beck to admire where cows had once been painted.

The next day, I drove to the Lake District and crashed my car outside Lake Windamere to a Mogwai crescendo. 


The other driver flew at me in a rage while his wife sat sadly in the passenger seat. They’d just come from the hospital. I let him burn his anger out and we had a chat. He saw the child seat in the back, and my stressed struggle to find my phone. You’re a straight guy, he said, calmly. 

(Weeks later he called to provide the details for the invoice for his damage and he asked instead for me to donate the money to a charity for assisted suicide.)

The Lakes had too many people around to be an experience of nature, so I got in my broken car and drove up to Scotland. 


I stopped at a beach overlooking Ailsa Craig, a small island hermited in the sea. The beach was vast and empty. I was alone in this small world by the road, cosily tucked in by the green and purple hills behind.I found a jellyfish in the sand and felt like I was the alien here. 



Sometimes it’s hard to know when you’ve experienced a view for long enough. I guess it’s when what you’re seeing stops being able to  drown out any inner noise.

All there was was noise staring out onto the top of the sea looking for the whale, but she never appeared. We handed back our yellow raincoats to the sheepish captain who was apologetic for the no show. 


It’s okay, don’t worry, I came here to find something and I didn’t. 





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