Bradley Stafford
Photography
The Island
You didn’t know this sort of peace could exist. Only within yourself have you known it before. How strange, then, to find it mirrored in luminous arbours, white walls, and plumes of flowers gently announcing themselves in the town’s walkways.
Time doesn’t move. It refuses to. You see its contented sluggishness in your own lethargy, and in the carelessly splayed legs of the one you love. You see it in the sea, a great blue beast purring in its half-sleep, unwilling to bring forth a wave worth the name. You’re all embalmed together, and it’s satisfying.
Couples watch the slow tide, and a fisherman turns his ancient eyes to the ashen lighthouse. They all move slowly, all the others, wading through mists of heat and inertia that the island gifts you with. Wreaths of dormant lightbulbs, hurriedly done graffiti, beach chairs and azure doors – all try to interrupt the great whiteness, the great sigh that swallows you. But it doesn’t work.
You go back down to the beach. The sand and water are honest, familiar in their endlessness. And now it’s you, the two of you, and all of you. Swimming slowly through forgotten time.
Words by John Martin.
