I shout out as the camera is shoved inside the plastic bag he took from the shop and sealed up tight, so I know that water can’t reach it and my words can’t be heard. But still I scream at him.

‘Be careful!’

I watch his bright white hands as they wrap the string of the bag round and round his wrist, so no current can whisk it away without him going with it. So even if the worst does happen and he gets swept away to sea and loses his life – like the millions of people who’ve drowned in this very same water – at least I get to watch as his skin bloats and the bubbles stop coming out of his nose.

He’s really shivering now as the wind whips up and the salt sprays.

Here we go.

I’m really doing this.

(Why am I doing this?)

And I’m afraid. It feels like my heart is beating a million times a minute.

It feels like Living.

I put my hand out. Imagine it wrapping round his. Imagine myself looking into his blurred, anyperson face and seeing eyes that see me. Really see me. And he’ll see a person who knows how to swim. How to avoid the current and what to do if we get swept away.

A person who knows how to stay Alive.

And

together

we run.

Pebbles jab into the soles of our feet as we tumble down the bank of stones to where the weeds reach their fingers towards our toes.

And our feet splash into the very edges of the water and the cold bites and we cry out, but still we’re running until the water swallows our calves and our legs and it gets harder to move and –

We dive. Into the wave that batters the beach, and we twist for air as the coldness takes breath from our lungs, and we want to shout out again, but our words have frozen. And all we can see is murky brown-grey and particles getting washed around as another wave crashes.

This time we get up. Stand on the seabed and breathe. And we think we have it all sorted when another wave comes and spins us back down again, into the brown nothing. And we can taste the salt in the back of our throats and feel it reaching to go further down. Down our windpipes. To make puddles in our lungs.

But together we’re stronger than that. And we push ourselves up again, and this time, when the wave comes, we jump. And suddenly we’re flying, higher than we could ever jump on land, soaring up to the grey clouds and the circling gulls and –

We’re Alive.

And this time we take a deep breath and dive. Pushing past the brown murk to the seabed where seaweed sways like lost hair in a bathtub, and bubbles escape from under the sand.