Crispin (Working Title) Part 1
By ryanwhitmore
- 333 reads
The air is composite and fresh; Crispin sucks it in dramatically and as it if were forbidden fruit. Apart from the slow expansion and contraction of his lungs and chest, he stands motionless in the busy city centre; a gentle breeze tugs playfully at the collar of his long charcoal coat and a few free strands of his hair. People fly by in a blur all around him and he thinks for a moment of them as atoms existing to serve an unknown purpose, unaware that their being contributes to the structure of something greater than themselves. But then he thinks of them as falling leaves, on a journey guided by the moment's wind and lasting no more than a few seconds. Each one is a stranger to him; as is he to them. He is perhaps also a stranger to himself, isolated from himself by the possession of an identity without form.
It is the first time Crispin has visited this particular city in his thirty one years and the odds are in favour of it being the last, for he usually likes to take his outings somewhere new. Although he has never been here before, the city emits a comfortable familiarity. It is not unlike many other places Crispin has visited of late, and he thinks that it is only for a few subtle changes to detail that one place is prevented from blending irretrievably into the next. Steadily and knowingly he surveys his surroundings and processes the information in a quiet and invisible manner. The Clock Tower: approximately 5:45. The traffic lights: red. The scaffolding: foam covered. The pavement: chewing gum coated. The pigeons: bloated and grey. The averagely attractive woman crossing the road: mildly and typically arousing. He thinks for a moment about time itself and wonders if what he sees hangs rigid and unwavering before him and all others who have ever been and will ever be; if it bends and melts and flows with the tide of eternity; if it fades and fizzles and dissolves as quickly as it was born; or if, indeed, that which he sees exists.
The averagely attractive woman drops a bottle of Evian. Arousal subsides. That which was red is now green. Chewing gum decays. Pigeons carry on.
As he absorbs these varied images, Crispin feels empowered. Ghostly he stands, and feels a tense excitement burning through his skin to the cool of the city air, patient as if waiting for it's master to grant it some sort of release. A bench: he sits, he watches some more. Time does that which we say it does. The crowd of people become scattered individuals that become outlying somnambulists. The city is gradually and almost imperceptibly dimmed, until it has become darkness. Crispin goes home.
This was the first of the week.
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Comments
some nice narrative
some nice narrative descriptions, but where is it going? And why?
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