I like to think my figurine, now in my pocket with the Westray Wife, came from the wreck. For years it might have been buried in the seabed but a perfect combination of time elapsed, stormy seas, east winds and high tides brought it for me to find on this spot on Papay this winter. There is a cycle. The things we put into the sea come back to us – parts of the crushed car will be washed up again – but because the ocean is downhill from everywhere, they will go back there eventually. I wonder if I might find the shoe I lost in the London canal on an Orkney shore. As my time on Papay comes to an
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