For Want of a Nail, the Ship Was Lost

In dazzling sunshine I step off the grassy bank and onto the beach, ending sock-deep in something black and congealed. It’s the rotten remains of a boat. There are remains of a prow still jutting out of the bank and, scattered over the beach, are ships’ nails, released from the rotting wood.

Sometimes the tiniest events have the greatest life-changing consequences and yet we can never know that at the time we experience them. For want of a nail, the ship was lost.