On Drowning

It was with some degree of trepidation that I acceded to Cornelius' request for a day trip to the seaside. I am by nature a creature of towns. I prefer the murk of an afternoon pub, the quiet of the library, the comforting smell of spilled petrol and the lullabies of the drunks.

The seaside seems so much. It is a sensory overload. the gaudy buckets, the jangling arcades, whatever candyfloss actually is. But my housemate was insistent that he needed some sea air, and so the coast it was to be.

He had claimed that, as I had picked the location of our last excursion, it was his turn. I had countered this by saying all I had suggested was a trip to the pub the previous evening, but he staid that still counted. Gracefully, I conceded the point, and so we made post haste for the sea.

I will confess that once I had got used to the intensity of the sunshine I began to enjoy myself, a change is as good as a rest, as my dear old Nana used to say, which explains why she owned so many clothes and never slept.

We played a round of crazy golf, lost some money on the slot machines, purchased some chips, fought off some gulls, all the things one does at the seaside, indeed, I was starting to feel positively transformed, even surreptitiously checking property prices.

At was at this point, strolling along the promenade, that I noticed a small mob of people on the beach, or rather, two mobs, a group of damp looking people being helped from a boat by some people in High-vis jackets, and a group of people stood in the shallows who seemed angry about something, and were yelling at the first group. Unable to resist, we strolled over to take a closer look.

"Look" said Cornelius "It's your man from Question Time, Norbert Porridge." He was correct, Norbert, a man known to us largely as an angry red face from the television telling us how awful everything was, was continuing this theme by shouting and heckling the group of people who looked rather as if they'd just been fished from the sea by a lifeboat crew. "Would you look at that" said Cornelius "he does it in his spare time, too, you have to admire the consistency."

So animated was Norbert, who was shouting into to a small phone held up by a young man with a distressing haircut, that he didn't realise that he was wading into slightly deeper water. Things moved pretty quickly after this, and before you could say "the rip-currents are notorious on this stretch of coast" Norbert was some way out to sea, and flailing. The young man with the distressing haircut let out an equally distressing wail, and plunged into the sea after him, yelping as he did so.

Tearing our eyes away from this spectacle we turned to look at the lifeboat crew, who seemed unaware of the situation, indeed, were I cynical man, I I'd be inclined to say that they were studiously ignoring the ongoing tragedy at sea. One appeared to be filing his nails. I was surprised that no one seemed to be able to hear the piteous cries of Norbert and his companion, but possibly the remonstrations of the remaining angry people, whom the lifeboat crew were resolutely ignoring as they tended to those they'd brought ashore, drowned them out.

"Hmm" I said "should we intervene?"

"Well now" said Cornelius "that's an ethical conundrum. If we save him now, what's to stop him doing it again? He may come to rely on being saved, and then where are we?"

"Ah, I see" I said "you're saying lessons must be learned, or everyone would be at it, getting swept to their doom."

"Quite"

We watched Norbert for a bit, before his head bobbed beneath the waves and the afternoon air grew tranquil once more. On balance, we reflected, it was probably what he would have wanted.