#seasidegothic

[helliecide]

June 2025

[dutchbarracuda]

Welcome to Clacton-on-Void

It’s a small town really, what is best described as an idyllic seaside town with all the refinements there of, fish and chip shops, arcades, a pier with amusements and rides, an award winning beach with huts dotted along. It has pubs, some hotels, plenty of bed & breakfast’s, and a small high street with a few franchised businesses. It is utterly unremarkable and utterly run of the mill, all with one exception. There is no sea. The bright summer sky, blue and cloudless, starts as most skies do, directly above oneself, but as one’s vision descends from the midday sun towards the horizon you’ll find it missing. The horizon that is. The sky just carries into the summer haze until you are looking at the sand at your feet. Where one might see waves lapping at the beach, or perhaps a surprisingly still edge of water, there is none. It’s not that there’s a cliff. One isn’t able to peak ones head over and see the underside of the beach, it’s just... not there. Like a translucent mist.

But it’s barely worth mentioning really. 

Fishermen still go out in their boats in the morning, catch their qouta and return to shore. And while battered voidfish is served at the local chippy, it isn’t very popular as it tastes of empty sky.

Every Christmas Day morning, as is traditional, a brave few don their swimming apparel to brave the cold winter day and dive into the void. None ever return.

Voidgulls are notorious and considered pests, though animal welfare rights prohibit hunting them. If you’re not careful they’ll gladly snatch a bacon sandwich or icecream from your hands, before landing on a nearby lamppost to start swearing at you. They have the entire English language at their disposal, but persist in simply swearing.

Every once in a while a group of children or teenagers head to the end of the pier past the arcades and rollercoaster, the penny pushers and ticket dispensers, with a bucket, fishing wire and pieces of bacon as they go crabbing for the first time. It is also the last time. Voidcrabs tend to be larger than grown men, and even an ambitiious group of children will eventually be pulled under.

Just like any other seaside town in England really.