Skala, ktorá odišla

Ešte nižšie zíde Polly tak hlboko, že stretne suseda. Vo vode, tak blízko, že by k nemu podľa nej mohla doplachtiť, stojí osamelá veža z bledej skaly a more sa okolo jej päty láme do bielej peny. Volá sa Zrnko piesku, čo je žart, lebo je zhruba taká veľká ako malý kostol.

Further down still, Polly comes down far enough to meet a neighbor. Standing out in the water, close enough that she feels she could glide to it, is a single tower of pale rock with the sea breaking white around its foot. It is called the Grain of Sand, which is a joke, because it is roughly the size of a small church.

Nestála tam vždy. Asi pred osemsto rokmi bola súčasťou tohto útesu, pripojená, obyčajná. Potom vlny dokončili prácu, na ktorej pod ňou dlho pracovali, spojovacia skala zmizla a veža ostala stáť v mori sama. Polly sa na ňu chvíľu díva. Dole je tenšia ako hore. More stále pracuje.

It has not always been out there. About eight hundred years ago it was part of this cliff, joined on, ordinary. Then the waves finished the job they had been working at underneath it, and the connecting rock went, and the tower was left standing alone in the sea. Polly looks at it for a while. It is thinner at the bottom than at the top. The sea is still working.

Vo výške jej očí preletí čajka a na túto sa oplatí pozrieť. Nie je to jedna z tých hlučných, čo sledujú lode a kradnú hranolčeky na prístavnom múre. Je to čajka Audouinova a zvyšky po iných vôbec nezbiera. Živí sa na otvorenom mori lovom rýb, čo je u čajky takmer vec princípu.

A gull comes past at eye level, and this one is worth watching. It is not one of the loud ones that follow boats and steal chips from the harbor wall. This is an Audouin's gull, and it does not scavenge at all. It makes its living out at sea, hunting fish, which for a gull is almost a matter of principle.

Odletí nad prieliv so svetlom za chrbtom, až kým ju Polly nestratí z očí. Pozrie sa späť na stojacu skalu a na medzeru medzi ňou a útesom a pomyslí si, že tá medzera bola kedysi pevný kameň, cez ktorý mohol niekto prejsť.

It goes out over the strait with the light behind it until Polly loses it. She looks back at the standing rock, and at the gap between it and the cliff, and thinks about how that gap was once solid stone that somebody could have walked across.