Sitting at the café at the edge of the world, you watch the ferries, like hulking metal beasts, lumber across the Irish Sea to Dublin. Patrons request Alexa, placed on a folding chair at the entrance, to play heavy metal. Screeching guitar riffs join the cry of gulls, piercing through the fog like a beacon of sound.
Handsome with sad dark eyes, the descendants of Celts pour sauce on their soggy chips. A young man, slender and dishevelled, nails painted black, lip pierced with a single hoop, stands still in front of the café. The two staff scurry between the rusty metal tables, tilting into concrete ruts. No one seems to notice his presence. You head across the street.
The elderly volunteers at the maritime museum show you mementoes of loss: a medal, a coin, a piece of uniform, a tattered map with sea monsters curled over the edges. They are the descendants of whalers and sailors in the service of the Royal Navy. In time, they learned to outsmart their bloodthirsty master by designing secure lifeboats, building the second-largest breaker in the world, automating the lighthouse at the end of the pier.
Local children pour into the museum, clutching their assignment books. They scribble down past glories so that, like the sonorous Welsh language, the stories will live on.
You stroll down the concrete path past Welsh and English holiday-goers splashing in the freezing surf. The sky is heavy with the promise of rain, but nothing dampens their joy at being on this tiny island, the westernmost point of the British Isles, conquered by Romans, ravished by Vikings, lorded over by Normans in their grand stone castles.
You amble over to your rental car, neatly tucked next to a slate wall running along the path by the sea. Your hoodie pulled up against the brisk sea air, you suddenly feel the urge to drive out past the breakers, past the lighthouse, to dive off the edge of the known into unchartered worlds.
You glance back at the café. The young man is gone. You, too, move on.
