At first, this appears to be an environmental disaster. I suppose it is, but it’s not purposeful destruction. It’s an accident. At least, I believe it is.
This is the other side of The Estuary, the unpopulated eastern edge of water in the Peel Region of Western Australia.
With the westerly winds blowing across it for most of the year, anything that enters the water from the well-populated western shore drifts across until it lands here.
A sunbaker sits on the sand in Mandurah on a summer’s day, takes off their footwear, lies down and closes their eyes to soak up the warmth. The low tide rises and quietly lifts one shoe from the beach and steals it. Two or three months later, it crosses the open water and rests in peace in this graveyard of soles on the other side of The Estuary.
The boating crowd contributes to the body count. They leave their shoes on a deck while the skipper opens the throttle. The loss isn’t discovered until the boat slows and the voyage ends. Somewhere mid-Estuary are two shoes bobbing up and down, slowly losing sight of each other and drifting east.
All it takes is a shoe here and there, over and over again for years, and the cemetery grows.
Case dismissed.
–Michael Forman (Author of Dark Fiction)
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