This piece is based on the Farallon Islands, a chain of islands off the coast of San Francisco, California.
As the golden glow of dusk slipped into the cool blue halo of evening, the water became a glassy black slate and the island’s jagged teeth that tore the delicate navy fabric of the sky. Blotched with white from the thousands of noisy roosting gulls, they struck an impressive figure silhouetted against the sinking sun.
Pounding waves smashed their foaming fists into the cliffs, battering them, mercilessly beating them into submission with a relentless barrage of blows.
Perched precariously on the crumbling edge, where the land met the sky, a lone lighthouse stood like a sentinel, its painted, fading red-and-white stripes flaking away from constant exposure to the elements.
The hollowed eye sockets of the skull-shaped cliff glared out over the crested waves, dark, empty holes devoid of light and life.
As the darkness gathered, blanketing everything in a thick blue-grey fog, the eerie calls of wheeling gulls reverberated through the shadows, the wavering notes dipping and soaring to form a haunting melody.
Rain began pattering down, trickling in rivulets down the muddy slopes and tussocky sides of the cliffs, streaking the islands like tears. The moon glowed like a beacon in the ink-black sky, accompanied by a shimmering symphony of stars.
As the island sat silently, buffeted by the swishing indigo swell, a cluster of dark shapes, gliding effortlessly beneath the sea’s wrinkled skin, burst through its shining veneer, puffing a delicate spray of shimmering rainbow droplets into the frigid night air. The orcas carried on through the crystalline abyss, and the last that could be seen was their tails, beating in unison as they vanished into the emptiness of the sea’s foreboding depths.
Prose, I knows 