Dawn

Dawn.
Layers of grey mist swirled and coiled across the bay as the sun poked fingers of light from the horizon. They hesitated, then lifted to reveal the desolate old pier…a shadowy structure that lurched crookedly out into the water. It stood on fifteen and a half barnacle encrusted legs. The timbers, which were bare and grey as old bones and polished splinterless by ages of sun and salt, caught the soft gold and pink of sunrise, as though specially painted for the day.
A girl sat hunched against the early morning chill, a sole figure on the deserted curve of beach, chewing the stem of a piece of washed-up seaweed and facing the panorama of sunrise. The taste and smell of salt and old sea things were familiar, yet as exciting as the ocean itself and the start of a new day. In this small part of the world, on this morning, she was the only world alive and the beauty was hers alone.
At one end of the pier old lobster pots and fish traps lay heaped against each other in a haphazard pile of rusted wire netting and weathered slats of wood. Pieces of rotting ropes damgled from the pilings, frayed and stiff with salt and casting twisted shadows on the surface below.
In this dark safety beneath the pier, small schools of silver bream and whiting flashed and wheeled in intricate formations of discipline and survival. An occasional vee-shaped ripple bespoke a larger predator and all movement ceased. Tiny crabs scurried around the pilings, their stalky eyes black and protruding. Legs waving and claws grabbing, they carried on their disjointed dance of survival.
A single gannet swooped low, skimming across the surface, then banked abruptly and headed to its roost on the top of the cave on the lava cliff. Light caught the tips of its wing feathers and for a second he was clearly outlined against the black face of the cliff.
She watched the never ending motion of the sea which rolled gently like a giant pudding simmering in a saucepan. Noises, muted in the early hours now slashed through the stillness. Greedy gulls fought and bickered, circling frantically at the shoreline as they scavenged for food.
The old pier creaked and moaned, protesting against the onslaught of high tide.
Two dark clad fishermen strolled along the beach, their voices deep and gruff and the acrid smell of their cigarette mingled harshly with that of fresh salt breeze.
Colours were suddenly clear and bright. Dawn was over and day was beginning.