A Marvel I Needed

Tap my phone, 8:40am. I’m in a new (to me), single bed. A cold herbal tea sits on the bedside table, looking rather sad in its murky green. Were I allowed to open the curtains, I know I could change its tune. But I daren’t. Not with my friend sleeping in a separate single bed across the room and her need for sleeping until noon, or maybe gone noon seeing as last night ended at 3:00am.

The dog is whistling one of his whines. He does that when he’s been holding onto one of the two bodily needs. It’s a good enough excuse as any to grab my laptop and camera to head downstairs.

To my relief, I have escaped the brutalist car parks and abandoned buildings of empty Plymouth. Through the square window is a small garden, a few hundred metres across from which is more land. Between is the sun-kissed ria of Salcombe, the Kingsbridge Estuary. I take some pictures with my camera. The water is as still as a connection with the English Channel can be. Yet, it is the busiest body around.

The house is stiller. My laptop keyboard is the loudest sound within, as my friend and her parents sleep off last night’s escapade (which led to the 3:00am clock-out). Coming down from the north, my friend couldn’t have known that Totnes is an undervalued train station for its drop-offs. She missed her stop. Instead, for the first time in both our university lifetimes, she was headed to Plymouth—exactly when I had just stepped out of it. Anyway, we’re here now.

A serene break. That’s what this is for all of us. We’ve needed this. My friend’s parents because they can’t get enough of little adventures away, me and my friend for polar opposite reasons. Her university experience has been a sea of rushing and waving faces. She’s a singer and a gigger, it’s only natural. Mine falls on the other side. Bleak, brutalist car park winter is an image to echo how I often feel at university.

Looking out through the square window now, the first bird of the day has passed by. Its backdrop is a marvel of oceanic geography. At least, it’s a marvel to me. It’s a marvel I needed.