I sat for some time, peering out through the unclean window at the entanglement of web. The spider was small and the wind harassed its efforts; a few panes up and marginally to the right there was a much larger spider, its web built and strong standing against the breeze. Slowly as if suddenly returning from a daze I returned my attention to the small spider, still sadly spluttering unsuccessfully to construct its web. "How pointless and sad I thought glumly with a hint of sadistic amusement, little spider spiralling haphazardly in the sudden onslaught of some wind gust or two flashing horribly against that thinly constructed gossamer fort. Down the centre pain of glass bird excrement had dried in a long arch, bombed no doubt in flight it had hit and oozed to the windowsill outside. A fat spider hanging gladly stern and silent, an industrious minor squabbling sadly to what end and purpose I could only believe impossible and a long trail of faeces in between "How pointless and amusing I thought to myself. Beyond the silly webs of those pointless arachnids I spied the skeleton scaffolding of construction; some project to turn an old multi storey car park into a new multi storey car park along side the canal waters. Little men in red hard hats scurrying, little men rushing and pulling, little men about those thin metal poles, raucous bravado and stern knowing as if led by some preternatural longing to hurriedly build the impossible too soon.
I am reminded of a conversation I had in a café, and the words seemed like a fragmented post modern poem, like the ones I detest for their banal lacking ' she took the first line I the second, she the third and I the fourth and still we came no nearer to the heart of each other.
-You lie to me always (pouting anger fading) what do you want?
-Oh please don't be cruel, I am too tired!
-No you are wrong (stern eyes waning) I mean what I say to you!
-Why now, what about all those days?
-I think you are a mad (pleasing sigh) oh you lovely foolish thing!
-I want everything from you (lips earnest passions) do you not heed me?
-Oh this is madness, you are madness!
I like to watch cars through windows and know that the occupants, those talking, chewing , rear mirror watching things do not know, that from some height, a little to the left sits a watchful creature as if on a web, to witness them watching themselves, pruning themselves like caged birds. I spied a couple in matching white and blue, strolling beside the dirty canal side. I hate all the walking daylight couples of the world. His attention drifting suddenly to a passing beauty in short skirt and flushing youth, she chats amiably into the perfumed oil engine air. She grabs his hand suddenly and nestles unto him; warm and giddy for her own delusions of his being. She could walk and cuddle him for hours; she adores walking beside him, listening to his academic prattle gladly, holding his strong hand, laughing too soon at his hollow humour, seeing to late his bitter jests at her. Yet all notions of love are merely notions of mutually destructive activity, swift passage time, from bed to car to cinema and back again. Love is a shared hot candle bath, walking becomes cold and stale, dirty and uncomfortable love is that which we find in ourselves and hastily attach to similar others. So we disguise the original being with false promises from our own. They stop suddenly and she begins lobbing bread into the water, two neat proud swans dine in regal repose; swift tea cup ducks splutter and prattle heavily always almost drowning themselves in their eager dried bread greed. He spies a youthful long haired girl sashay by, she flashes her eyelashes at his lascivious want, and girls adore nothing more than to be wanted by those who have a girl of their own; a primordial mating ritual like some amateur theatre. She runs out of bread and laughs gladly as two squabbling ducks swing feathered hang bags for bread that has already sunk to the dark frog spawn reeds. In some sham moment of beaming sunlight and giggling happy she crabs her body about his frame, rubbing her cheek against the shirt she bought for him; he pats her on the shoulder, whilst glaring at all the passing beauties her fears never to know, she clings like some too eager creature.
I tried to envisage their bed that morning; she fussing downstairs with scrambled egg listening to his favourite CD, he thoughtful and sad languishing in the purple duvet of his concealment, scratching his head and whistling the half malady to a song he learnt a long while ago. I could smile for all the things I do not know, and all the things couples do not know about each other.
Outside of the window, time and being coalesce into one manageable illusion, a lie some conceit and would be pleasure. "What names have been chosen for them? I ask myself and it is a silly thing, for through the window, I can see them with a clarity they shall never possess or understand what use a name would be? None at all from a voyeurs heightened perspective, a giraffe necked vulture upon a bishops perch, peering lasciviously at the gamut of talkative sinning flesh. What words did they whisper in the sweaty gratification of night's post love making?
'You were too rough' she almost sobs
'egh' brooding animal man, beast had its own. Ever long silence in the dark, a police siren splutters the cracking glass tenseness of night outside. She nestles upto him like an exhausted seal pup.
'You were rough again'
'Well I thought you liked it that way' grunts as from a cave his words do not come from his near body, he ruffles his non feathered flesh and she retreats in the dark to her own cold side. He sleeps and she sobs in fearful concealment for her vaginal pain and her dirty headed thoughtlessness. Here I wonder what words go through her head in that quiet hour of his snoring, as the final shards of night glass wilt and melt away, blue sky morning and a milk mans chortling hello's to the usual dawn men about their dawn business. I will never know the things lovers do not tell each other after intimacy. I named them Adam and Eve and they are too long unknowable even to me who watches nothing and sees everything.
It struck me how people often look and watch out of windows, but do not care to see what is there; almost like looking out of a window at night, all one invariably sees is a murky reflection of oneself. The fallen ness of the world, pre-occupied with their own being, the fallen ness of all those romances that you can not see by looking through a night window; you see yourself as you believe yourself to be: intelligent, innocent, worthy of love and unworthy of scorn, truthful and beautiful in the dark glass. I should hope one day she shall open the door and step outside, to tip toe behind the window and peer into the bright kitchen and there in see as I see; from her concealment view the myriad of the stubborn pointlessness of illusionary reality, the stubborn hard lies of kitchen things. Life works in much the same way, yet in the day one should see humanity as it is, pointless like endeavour against the wind and amusing like spiders glutton resting.
