Third Scene

The Metro to the coast.

The city falling away. The suburbs. Flat fields. Horses, grazing.

Open space. Open skies, criss-crossed by chem trails, as Cicero would call them.

Pondering the meaning of Cicero’s coast-move. What was she looking for at the coast? Why did she move right out of the city? And why did we follow her, out of the city? Because aren’t we moving out there one by one? Don’t I already have my high Cullercoats flat, six floors up, facing away from the sea, it’s true, but still enjoying the coastal ambience; the coastal air? Hasn’t Hans his North Shields maisonette, not far from the Fish Quay, from the world’s greatest fish ‘n’ chips shops? And there’s Ava’s South Shields tenement, just across the Tyne …

We’re philosophers of the coast. Or would-be philosophers of the coast. Or aspiring philosophers of the coast, philosopher being not a description but an honorific, which can be bestowed only by others.

And there’s Cicero herself, the real philosopher of the coast. Cicero, with her rumoured lottery-win money; with her rumoured inheritance, domiciled in handsome Tynemouth not far from the Armstrong memorial. Not far from her beloved Sir James Knott Memorial Flats, on top of the hill, overlooking river and sea …

Was Cicero in search of sea air, full of ozone, following her early retirement? Was it the vistas she wanted – needed – to unfold her more expansive ideas, the full sublimity of her thought, now she was free of her teaching and administrative duties? Was it to be among the coastal people, among seafarers and descendants of seafarers, who, tired of the city, likewise wanted to live among seafarers and descendants of seafarers?

The coast is the place where the lie is exposed: hasn’t Cicero always said that? By the extent of the sky. By the vastness of the sea. The coast is for the undeceived, she's said more than once. The coast is for the unfooled. The coast is for the not entirely destroyed.

We’re here to exchange molecules with the coastal air: that’s what Cicero’s told us. With the coastal sky. With the sea! With the river Tyne as it runs into the sea! We’re here to become porous. For the air to enter into us, or for us to enter the air.

The coast will become our last redoubt: that’s what Cicero’s said. Our last holdout. The coast will draw our kind towards it: the righteous kind. The resisting kind. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear what’s really going on.