THE PREY OF THE TERRIBLE
(Isaiah 49:25) 

By Tessa Harvey



    Jack knew instantly when the rock crumbled beneath his feet that he had not been very smart. Running towards the cliff edge, he had leapt over a small fissure close to the edge of the steep cliff near his home, and slipped - right over the edge.
    He had only slithered a few metres, fingertips scrabbling frantically, feet flailing for some kind of foothold. Miraculously he had found it. A tiny ledge. The boy looked up and knew it was beyond him to climb back up. He was at least two metres down. It was almost sheer. Jack looked below and wished then he had not.
    Birds were screeching around him, some swooping close, guarding skimpy nests, eggs and young.
    Below then the sea surged hungrily over black flat rocks. He gulped and clung tighter to his precarious position.
    Telling his volatile father he was too old to be bullied had not gone down well. The cracking blow across his face had left an angry imprint, blazing red.
    So he had fled from home and now here he was. Stuck.


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