Walk

Martha stopped to wonder. Beneath the great looming shade of some
giant forgotten tree, green upon the roadside. Where's the wonder? Who
got my dream wrapped up so tight I ain't ever gonna see it? Why I not
know love, some happiness, good times and friendly words? Why I carry
these bags like this every day, to and from, from and to, - why I cut
my hands?

Silly cars splashed their way past her down along the road and gone,
not one bleak face even turned to stare and Martha wondered. Why I even
here? Why I got to bother with all this fuss?

September her worst month, being the last of the summer and smelling of
death like it does. It was a wet one with the rain not ever stopping or
if it did just long enough to let one two three thunder claps in then
crashing down all over again, illuminated by the terror-lightning.
Hedgehogs lay dead in creeping forms along the gutters and not one
expert could give an answer why, they just seemed to keep curling up,
distorting, dying. Dogs snuffled their wet and hungry noses into the
spiky corpses, though turned their heads, probably knowing to avoid so
much death where blood ain't tasty no more. The clouds had formed in
late July and not broken since, blanketing the sky in grey on grey on
grey, even at night not one little star had the strength to poke its
eye through the shroud of cumulus nimbus and stratosphere. All the
rocket launches had been cancelled in Houston; satellites were starting
to malfunction. Protests were beginning in Trafalgar square, great
crowds of people, everyone come to jeer and really all they wanted were
some answers; the Met office had stopped picking up the phones. The TV
broadcast pictures of the muted masses huddled for warmth like animals,
with the rain ceaselessly driving and raging, burning their faces and
wearing every man down. On the television screen the crowd was covered
with a tight ceiling of umbrellas blowing out in the wind, and hail
stones like golf balls puncturing the canopy. Nobody knew where all the
pigeons had gone; flown home no doubt - they could see the writing on
the wall.

Big brave mighty old majestic trees were being blown down every day,
up-turning and showing their roots, like poor naked old ladies stripped
bare. The forestry commission was upset and refused to speak to anyone
but tree surgeons and priests. Every morning a front would pop up on
the radar screens, carrying with it all the portents of storm warnings
and hurricane force winds - the sea was crying out in confusion. The
waves had a new form, a new rhythm all of their own - they'd come
across the great white raging expanse of ocean and turn and quiver then
race in, unscientifically fast, to dash the shore in every direction,
manic great crashes. The oceans had finally started to disagree with
the land

Livestock in fields, like poor white sheep and hopeless dumb cows were
coming down with hypothermia and severe cases of pneumonia, and even
they had started to act crazy finally realizing they ain't living but
dying. Every building was slowly being destroyed, methodically, in some
sort of heavenly roulette of who goes first and you can't ever win.
Tiles flying of roofs and chimneys crumbling dramatically at two in the
morning to fall at father's feet as he tried to sleep and dream of that
oh so young little high school sweet-heart, breathing on his neck,
whispering all those take me nows and I want yous.

So Martha stopped to wonder. She felt coldly alone, bringing up the
collar of her coat to hug in against her cheekbones, bowing down her
poor soaked head, perfect droplets letting go from the ends of her hair
- and d'you know, if she had of been crying nobody would have known.
She had on her brown old leather like big boot shoes, half covered by
soaked grey trousers, cut off at the knee by the long coat like a
shroud or veil. Her cold hands she had firmly tucked into her pockets
though still they shook and trembled, pale boned blue old hands worn by
time and oh so breakable. Although she didn't have a pretty face, no
not pretty, just gentle or serene you'd say with almost her thoughts
written on the outside not the in. Lank wet mouse brown hair shapeless
and not really cared for or ever looked at - you could look through her
real easy - you probably have, seen her I mean, you ain't gonna
remember, not your fault.

And those eyes. Surely those eyes, all animal and alive, flit quick
stare then wander round and blink one two three and close then stare
and you ain't gonna see no life behind those, like fish eyes or dead,
she's all on the inside. Ever seen a ghost?

Do you ever feel sad? Cold and worn out on the inside, really feeling
that you got nowhere to go? Like you can't sleep in fear that you
shan't ever wake, or want to at least, kind'a like there's something
missing, a big piece of you gone? Jigsaw puzzles really, crosswords
missing the clues. - Ah, so my point is this: She dead. She really
truly dead though can walk and talk, keeping up the act - switched off
you know, tragically incomplete.

If you'd been sitting there at the bottom of that street you yourself
could have seen. The single silhouette of the body walking, amongst the
other silhouettes - not different, just grey - then you'd have seen
with your own big blue eye the pause and the breath, just that instant,
the tiny little timeless second to stop and wonder and then off she
goes though different, Martha through the rain - you could have seen -
really would have been something.

Windswept and bent though hell-bent on life, that tree stood good and
strong and sure - it must still be there now, feeling real proud of
itself, resting. The large raindrops dropped down from the heavy set
clouds, filtered through its branches and became even bigger great
balls of water and all to fall on Martha beneath, already as wet as she
could get.

- It's amazing really that she walking in one way for one little beat'a
time, like she walked all her life ever, then little second ticks and
she walk real different like a big weight lifted or something all
drained out -

So walk you walk
From sheet to wreath
Wearing nothing on yr head
But rose and blood
And little halo
Careful now
No time to sleep -

- So, what you gonna say to yourself, eh, what YOU got really but those
hands to work with and all for nothing but a chance to sleep and don't
tell me you got a voice cos we all have that though who hears what men
said now their words all got cracked and dried? - what's the point
really? - to keep it all going and pray and what's God gonna do, come
down and whisper in yr ear, tell you where to go, that you got it made,
sun's really magic and all the sweet angels are a-waiting, chiming on
their little goldens, just giving it all away. - Free air I say - so go
breath brother, you go and breath - take it all right now and laugh,
yer laugh, big old glees for what the hell . . .

If you'd been sitting there at the bottom of that street you'd have
seen her finally disappear, rounding a corner - do you think you'd have
known, could tell?

Somewhere round in the center of town just as sun started to dip its
eye; as two people stepped off a bus and the streetlights started to
hum; when the rain was whipping horizontal through the ravaged sky; as
sea was slowly curling up to die of great wave sickness and a broken
heart; Martha walked solemn and careful down a sad old tree-lined
street, clutching at her bags and humming something sweet to herself.
It felt like the entire world was asleep on its feet, just going
through the motions like machines, she had a new acute feeling for life
and nowhere could she see it. Even the cars were breaking down more,
spluttering and coughing just too fed up to keep on going. She looked
round with her new careful eye at the rows of houses and thought 'they
ugly', saw the gardens and spiky streetlights and the road all grey and
wet-slicked shining and saw a whole lot more besides and she
appreciated, she did, oh she happy.

All the wonder she thought, all the little works of man to do good and
not no harm and who knows who right but I say, yes I say, that this not
bad and something to be proud of, something to be proud. And she saw
all and smiled big secret smile and walked real slow to appreciate and
take it in, take it in - all to remember, so much to lose.

Such a deep real melancholy shroud the clouds looked - clouds looked
cold.

Hope died in 1998 or so they say. The fear so deep out on the blue
white black splash ocean raging in confusion and its final greatest
glory, and all the ships, all the ships - the ocean she pleased with
her power, though lost and all messed up.

Martha sat down heavily on a bench by the shops, on old centenary road,
letting the bags fall from her hands and the hands, so white, just fell
like broken cups. Gentle grey, her face was so untrue like dream of
unreality, all rain swept wet and shining out with the death dead eyes
looking not around or nowhere but right inside like finally she'd seen
enough, and so they saw, they just looked, they just saw.

Give it ten, fifteen minutes and she was up again and walking down
street along curb passed the nasty cars and through the roaring rain
with wind keep bending her backward though she no stop, she no stop, -
and there at the bench sit the bags, one tipped and failed, the rest
still carrying harmless groceries like bread and eggs, so sad, so
sad.

Do you think that a child could really ever miss what it's never had?
They're alright without the sun, tis just a little grey and sad? And
something else - you must have at least once felt that you just gotta
leave, like you really can't stay no more?

Down on the promenade the big night dark was descending and there
Martha walked just a-gently humming sweetly to herself. The air was so
thick with storm you would've missed her from just a hundred feet away
- almost like whole world moved up and the sky falling making the
clouds lurch and lope all across the land, making us all walk right in
them, right there in the thick of it all, lost in the storm.

Her walk so tired that each step hardly clear the ground, she trip on
little rocks, she look like she wanta be near to the ground. She keep
her private thoughts still private and locked up tight, and she not
lonely no more - no, sees she got nothing and everything all at once
and finally at last.

The rain suddenly shifts its direction to tumble straight down in
prison-bar lines finishing with splashes on the ground. Torrents run
through the gutters carrying little leaves and paper scraps down deep
into the drains all washed away - the rain still coming, hugeness looms
everywhere.

Somewhere up there in the neon-night fake modern sky, behind the orange
tint greys of electric clouds, a big wide moon was lifting up its own
self to float in the heaven stars and open spaces. Soft round no-moon
hidden behind the earth's new special blanket she wraps herself in to
keep everything out and everyone in. Claustrophobia has become pandemic
with whole new institutions devoted to the care of everyone who feels
trapped; new white buildings with shiny taps and swing doors, locking
doors; voluntary incarceration for all those who feel trapped.

She trip again and stumble forward she quickly steps heavy shoes and
straightens out and just carries on. Martha keeps going on. She got
true sad memories 'bout being young and all everything so wonderful, it
all bright, the big blue, ah little sweet songs and day trips where not
everything boomed its own tunes for itself but world a little gentle
and quiet with own world cares for everything that walk with little
feet or fin on its old rock skin. She seen all pretty things to pretty
songs and could'a danced for it all as all just crept and whispered and
not no sound to wake her back then, not no crashes on her little
ear.

Martha wondered then if she could - yes, and danced in tiny steps
through the great manic storm and didn't care for anyone else and
danced along to her sweet humming tune, and danced along to her sweet
humming tune, and danced along to her sweet humming tune. Strange
clumsy pirouettes and brilliant bows to the things that she danced for
- along and down she went to the path where the land begins to rise up
in the birth of the coastal cliffs. And up she went and up she went and
up she went to top where a tiny gull sat beneath a beaten bush and the
wind so strong that it became everything - all sound, all sensation -
just great massive breaths from deep deep sky. And danced she did and
danced she did right up to the cliff edge where the land just cut, and
every day the ocean was biting more and more and hungry, still,
crunching its teeth on the rocks hundreds of feet below. Finally right
on the edge and almost holding on with her toes Martha took big last
bow to ocean itself and rose up grey gentle head to look, really look
and sea all the outside and dream on it, yes dream on it.

Massive storm was everywhere and was so low now that the lightning
seemed to come from somewhere down below, beneath the line of the
cliff, illuminating with flicker flashes all the shadows and making
silhouette the world, black and white. All of the air had come alive,
could speak now and it screamed. Oh no, Martha not scared - don't think
that, she got other cares. She think why I here? This big cliff's not
strong, it up too high, too far away.

And there at the top of the world she stood on the brooding mass of
black cliff just a tiny figure swirled and whirled by the crazy great
storm. The grass looked brown and death and forlorn shadows of bushes
were swept almost clear away making only some joke of who they were -
&; always below the ocean, troubled and insane with its wave
sickness and the worm in its core. And the figure stood and looked the
worst of all, with burden and death so's you'd think that she was
missing, missing all that would make her living, and she got real death
auras and sad tears but she's not crying or looking out, just in, and
she hums to herself a sweet little tune, turns, and walks back down. -
So up high above there's pearl-drop angels trumpet blowing, dropping
little pieces'a heaven down onto the world . . . and the silence is
golden.

Down to the sea.

So the bleak city didn't care at all.

One then another.

Footstep footstep footstep footstep footstep . . .

Martha she got no more worry, she got no more whys or wonders. She
breath now heavily and close up her eyes. And she sees all the angels
and big deep blue and little tear she could have shed for the colours.
And sees what she wants to see and walks oh so gently slow and like
ghost just folds and darks and fades and the ocean still mad and the
rain still rain and down on the beach in the crash of it all there
ain't no one left, she die, she dead.