Wandering the streets, sun coming out and going away again, I realise how lonely I am. I think I've known this all along — I just didn't want to admit it. I told myself, I am free, I can do whatever I like, go wherever I want. But life only tricks you into saying these bold things so it can laugh at you when you swallow them afterwards. I can't do anything, because nothing is better than anything else. And I can't go anywhere, because everywhere's the same. I might as well, I won't, there's no point, I won't. I'll just keep living my shapeless life. An autumn leaf falls from a tree. A gust of wind blows and it skids along the pavement with an almost metallic clatter. How many memories skid along with it. They unroll like a country road, leading me through the dappled light of overhead branches, the sound of running water, of motorbikes and single cars, through farmlands and scattered buildings to the maddening warmth of home. I'm lying. It hurt to say it, the words came out small and tight, even in my head. But I'm lying. It isn't autumn, it's spring. A leaf didn't fall from a tree and my memories didn't skid or unroll. The maddening warmth of home! I'm blushing. Why did I lie? I must not lie. I must tell the truth, the whole truth, etc.
I'm standing on a quiet suburban street. Cars are parked along both sides of it, although there are a few spaces where there aren't any cars, mostly to give access to the garages adjoined to the houses. In these spaces the kerb is slightly lowered. If I were on a bicycle I would use them to make the transition from pavement to road with the minimum of jolting and possible damage to my wheels. The weather is dry, in spite of the intermittent clouds. However, it hasn't been dry for long, as can be seen from the dark patches on the paving slabs. Also from the shallow puddles at the sides of the road. In one such puddle there is a reflection of the sky and the branches of a tree, still mostly bare. The darkness of the water and the brightness of the sky give the reflection a ghostly, monochrome quality. However, on closer inspection there is some colour in the puddle, courtesy of a few streaks of petrol.
I must record the world exactly as I see it, and feel it. How else can I hope to keep hold of it? I must make the surface of the pavement as hard and rough in words as it is under the palms of my hands. Under my hands and against my knees, through the fabric of my trousers.
The puddle is in a gap of less than a meter between two cars. One of the cars is red, the other blue, though somehow the dark gloss of their paint and the spattering of mud on their undersides make the colours seem the same. Their profiles are different though, one high and snub nosed, the other lower and sharper beaked.
I must describe not only the reflection, and the thin film of petrol smeared across it, but the thinness of the longing it creates inside me, to dive into the world contained in the puddle. Thin and fleeting as the heart's remembered leaps. That's too poetic. I must be precise, so the transience of my desire for the vague image floating on the surface of the puddle will be caught in words that are not themselves transient and vague.
A dog is barking somewhere. Construction works are taking place.
I must record all the impressions that enter my thoughts, and the minute changes in those impressions, like the dirty shimmer of the petrol. My longing for the upside down puddle world sings and fades. It's a longing for something I've never had, or that I had once and cannot recapture. Something that will smash as soon as it is understood. Therefore I must smash it. I cannot build my hopes on water and light. I cannot flee somewhere that will not bear my weight. Bedspreads and afternoons! Muzziness of light! The tree outside, the opiate of its moving leaves! Cold brittle fingers clutch the duvet, clutch each other, the siren song of sleep, its faded rocks, the wan tired daydream of love! I advance slowly, on all fours. The reflection moves as I do. Now there are no branches in it, only sky. Now there is no sky. Nothing but water and the black tarmac under it and the tiny stones gathered on the bottom, against the kerb, and the bluish iridescence of the petrol. My head casts a faint round shadow. My fingers reach over the edge of the kerb, but not too far, I don't want to go too far. There's nothing there. I'm glad there's nothing there. I'm glad the illusion has disappeared.
From a distance the surface of the kerb looks monotonous and smooth. But up close there are chips and dents in it, places where the edges have been scuffed away. There are bits of chewing gum stuck to the blocks, and dark, nameless streaks. Then there is the grain of the concrete itself: pock-marked, layered, grey on grey. The fabric of real life. I run my fingers over it. My fingertips feel sensitive against its rough texture. I think of my lips, coarse and squint, and the tenderness of touching them together. I touch them together.
The sun disappears and the sky goes grey. It could not be otherwise. It could not be. There's nothing but reality. I'll fall in love with reality. The cloudy sky, the dark puddle, the pavement, the hard kerb, I'll fall in love, I'll fall in love, I'll fall in love. I'll give myself to reality. My tenderness, my softness, my soft soft cheek nuzzling the kerb…
I wipe my face when I stand up, but otherwise I don't give the incident a second thought. I just get up and continue on my way. I'm lying again. I looked around nervously when I stood up. I looked around and cursed myself for being such a freak. What if someone had seen me? The thought brings madness to my spine. I'm walking quickly, fleeing the crime scene. This only reinforces my sense of shame and fear of detection. I'm talking to myself, I'm saying, Why are you such a fucking freak, but I'm saying it out loud, I shouldn't say it out loud, anyone could hear me. And then they have those cameras everywhere. No doubt some fat unshaven security guard is watching me right now. Watching me on a flickery, subdivided screen and scratching his belly, and laughing into a packet of pork flavoured crisps. Or worse, my image is being analysed by banks of humming computers, labelled and cross-referenced for future use. Human, kneeling. Traces of moisture visible in one eye, other eye obscured by pavement. Attitude suggests both piety and despair. Dirty great stains on arse of trousers.
At the crossroads up ahead a traffic light is ticking on and off. A flashing green man is telling me, Hurry up, make a decision, cross the road or don't cross it, just don't change your mind in thirty seconds and dash out with one hand raised to the revving cars, as if your life is a movie and the leading man has had a sudden change of heart. There aren't any cars. Only houses. One of the streets leads up a hill. The houses disappear over the top of it, vanishing from the bottom up, like ships' masts sinking over the horizon. Oh god, the ocean. Blue emptiness. The sound of seagulls. The feel of salt spray against your face. The ocean doesn't exist. Only photographs in a travel-agent's window. Only that psychic pull at the Saturday afternoon shopper, that force field of longing he must escape to continue his voyage along the high street, navigating between other dangers — the glamorous women on billboards, the real women on the pavements, the birds swimming like fish through the air, the contented expression of the old man walking with his hands behind his back, all the years he's spent in the same town settled on his face like the pipe tobacco stains yellowing his fingers.
I'm still at the crossroads. The traffic light has stopped ticking and the little man is now a stern, unwavering red.
The little man is now a stern, unwavering red
The little man is now a stern, unwavering red
Oh jesus, it's happening. Start with the fingertips, free them first, then the rest. Just the fingertips. It's no good I can't move. Everything is frozen not just me. The clouds behind the traffic light look painted on. The dark bird in the periphary of my vision has been pinned to the sky. The low swoosh of traffic is stuck on one sound, one soft hissing sound, endlessly prolonged. And my eyes are fixed on the little red man. If only I could move them. So loud, that soft hissing sound. If only I could move my eyes. If only I could
I'll never hate my life again. Only give it back to me. Give it back. Don't bury me like this. Entombed in a block of ice. My frozen heart I've never loved I've never lived and now it's over. It's over. I'll never dance again. I've never danced. I was frozen from birth, ice cold head between my mother's legs. But give it back to me. Give it back. I promise I'll use it this time. I'll learn how to live, how to love. I can learn, I'm not too old. Just don't leave me like this, don't leave me like
This moment. This moment. My thoughts race round and round. The high whine of a motor with nothing to oppose it. I was always empty, a mind without a body. The paralysis is creeping inside me, freezing my nerves, spreading through my veins. The less I feel the faster I think. Faster and faster. My mind keeps spinning faster. It can't go on like this. Surely something is going to snap surely something is going to
Everything lurches forwards at once.
Everything, including me. It's like when you're on an escalator, or one of those moving corridors at an airport, and you step off without thinking about it, and almost trip on the toothed metal guard that the belt sweeps under. It's just like that. Nothing more. The traffic swishes up and down. The bird continues across the sky. I'm on my knees. Why am I on my knees again? Silly place to be, on your knees, in the middle of the pavement, your face in your hands, your face, tears streaming down your face.
Better to get up. Much better to get up and start walking again. I'll feel much better when my blood is circulating and my heat is beating. When I'm moving. Bad things can't catch you as long as you keep moving. That's what I tell myself. And that's what I tell the bad things, that they can't catch me, they can't catch me. So okay. Okay, I'm walking now. I'm walking towards an area with a few shops and a blue railing in front of them.
A bicycle is chained to the railing. I think about the bicycle. My mind cycles off with it, changing its old-fashioned gears, rattling its mudguards as it bumps up and down kerbs. I almost smiled there. I almost smiled, I caught myself at it. It can't be that bad. I'd like to cycle somewhere. Where would I cycle?
