The Dead

You could hear a pin drop, there is nothing. As you walk over the field nothing is left except the ruins of make-shift shelters and the wooden splinters of carts. The reckless dust makes the dying sun a hazy smudge on the horizon. By the river, the trickle of water is barely audible; it runs swiftly, desperate to escape the plains. Beyond the river upon a hill, a yellow flag stands proud, but not flying high; fallen and dormant – there is no victory in the wind. There is nothing in the air.

The field is now mapped with the bodies of soldiers. The fallen, on all sides, lay sprawled over the rocks and tangled in the gnarled wire.

I look at you and I hope for your sake that they found glory.

We must tread cautiously: not making contact with the fallen, not daring to fix upon their still, complacent faces.

Our boots squelch in red mud.  Now the air is tangy with metal.  A crow takes flight, settles on the shoulder of an upright body and cries.
    

You’re not in line with me, soldier. Stay with the group, that’s what to do now - that’s all we can do now. But you’re absent. You’re a cloud in this place, drifting amongst the fallen.

There’s a bridge somewhere, at least there should be - there was before. We need to cross the river and it’s the only way, it will be an hour's walk back to base - wait, we must carry the injured - I don't know what will happen.

Twilight arrives with its judgements. It brings a mist that roles over the plains. We’re ghosts among the dead. And up ahead your silhouette in the mist floats through the crowd.

I call you back. I am ignored. You continue your empty ramble – against my instruction.
“Jack!” The silence is broken; red pools quiver, the plains stir. “Jack!” You call again. The cry echoes through the mist: rebounding off the fallen, colliding with their peace.
“Be silent, soldier!”
“Jack! JACK!” You sob as your knees fall into the mud, “Jack…”

I wanted to tell you that you were in vain, I saw him fall.  It was like a leaf falling in a forest.

I pull you up. I push you onward.

Blue Eyes

“Don't ever lose your blue eyes, promise me.”
“I don't know how I ever could, but ok.” he laughed.
He was flicking through the photos on the camera and he was smiling. This was a nice place to be.
The blue of the sea and the green of the grass and the gold of the sand and the fading red of the sun. If he lost everything he would be happy; but his eyes – he must have his eyes. 

The Next Morning

I remember when I walked to work nearly every day that summer in drizzle, sunshine, or gales. Along the suburban streets down the main road and through the park. Thoughts of you and me and everyone else played out in my mind to the beats and drops of my music. I can't say I enjoyed it very much – especially in the rain. But the walk gave me time to think everything over.

Once in a while I was hungover and my head dropped and my feet staggered: this meant a specific melancholy. I was too small for my life and the figures, dreams and fears hung over me like the lolling trees.

The park gates opened into an expanse of fields and sporadic patches of forest. I remember reading how Adam awoke in Eden, Eve begotten, and travelled the land naming all the animals.

Like it was Nothing

The scene is a bar busy with young people and there’s the sound of chatter beneath loud music.  Dillon sits with his elbows leaning on his lap and his fist supports his chin.  There is a girl sitting beside him and she’s poking the ice cubes in her drink with her straw.  The silence is broken.

Dillon

Yup!  I definitely think he is a keeper.

Gloria

What do you mean?

She looks at him and smiles.  Dillon says nothing.  Gloria puts her drink down.

I don’t know what you mean, Dillon.

Dillon

Aw, just this new boy: he has potential.

Gloria

Are you talking about...

Cut to the bar where a tall young man with dark hair is talking to someone, leaning nonchalantly, smiling and nodding.  He looks directly at the camera: he knows Gloria is looking at him, his smile widens.  Cut to Gloria who is flushed and produces an embarrassed smile.

Dillon

Yes.  Him.

Gloria

I think he’s a nice guy.

Dillon

He could be a suitor for you at long last, Gloria.

Gloria

My goodness, Dillon, you are obsessed.  You say that about every guy that holds a door for me.

Dillon

But this guy (he laughs slightly) this guy I’ve known a year from the team, right! - listen Gloria, and he’s never been as, hmm... How should I say – as lively!  as when he’s with you.

Gloria

Complete bullshit.

Gloria grabs her purse and began rummaging through it and pulled out a small make-up mirror and scrutinised her face.  The silence resumes.

Dillon

You had your chance.

Gloria

What?

Dillon

I said you had your chance with me and you let it go like it was nothing.

Gloria

Aw thank you, Zak.

Cut to the guy from the bar putting drinks on the table.

Zak

Sorry ladies and gents, met a girl I know at the bar, couldn’t get away – typical!

Dillon takes a sip of his new drink, Gloria glances at him nervously. 

Dillon

(To Himself.) Like it was nothing.

Whispers in the Library

The quiet is
punctured
by whispering.

My concentration:
thrown to the waves;
to the bird-breath
of hushed tones.

Not even music
will ease the
shrill,
gas-leak
language
of the whisperers. 

London 2013

People I know always talk about escaping; as if they’re trapped in the streets and walls of the place they were born - condemned to suffer there forever.  I don’t understand these people and I usually don’t associate myself with them.  How could you not love your home: it’s your city and everything in it; and it’s your people and all your memories.  When I walk these streets I feel a connection – a sense of ownership.  It’s not arrogance, it’s pride.  I love where I live.      

I dozed on the bus with surreal images rising and falling in my mind of where I’d come from and what I did there.  I get homesick very easily, I miss Glasgow even if I’m gone but a day.  Ten hours in the same seat with the same people takes its toll but at least now the sun was coming up and the surrounding fields and rivers were illuminated yellow.  Summer was latent and it was beginning in the south as it always did.   

But suddenly, the passing world begins to change and morph: green becomes grey, starlets became pigeons, and fields became industry.  I didn’t quite believe what was happening as the Megabus took the city in the early May-day sun.  Recovering from my slumber, I yawn and try to gather my bearings.  It started with blocks of concrete towers and I knew this was London.  This nuance of the city was the grit and graffiti staircase I see on the TV.  It was riotous back then, but everything was still in the morning light. 

Now, on the motorway, we’re floating as a humanist’s master plan unfolds in spires, square rooms and the halo of the Wembley stadium.  London was resolute: it was history and geography and politics sprawled out in square miles.  I remember Glasgow, my favourite scene: the Kingston Bridge by night where the city spreads its wings to carry you over the Clyde; the buildings glow purple, blue, neon green and you could be anywhere in the world.  I used to wait a little at the end of the day so I could get the express bus home and I could live this moment on the bridge.  In April, rays of the evening sun would light up the hills somewhere in the distance.      

The streets seem quaint as the city wakes up.  The shopkeepers are unfolding the shutters; cyclists and runners seem to be the city’s only population.  Through the trees I catch a glimpse of horses galloping in one of the city’s parks – I don’t know which one but I’m trying to guess; I’m trying to guess street names and recognise Underground stations I’d seen on the news or a film. 

Turning a corner, I know this place.  Westminster – it looks like it’s made of crackers and bread sticks.  I’d seen it before, but never like this; on the news it seems so remote – it’s incredulous that I’m here.  I want off this bus.  I want to move in this city - to feel the pulse of its racing heart.  I want to live: experience the grandeur of London’s institutions; the buzz in its core; the breathlessness when you look up from the foot of a sky scraper and you see the pinnacle of human endeavour.  

Impatient and slightly nervous, I finally alight at Victoria bus station.  It’s funny how all bus and train stations look the same in every city like it’s trying to tell you once you’ve arrived that it doesn’t matter where you’ve been because the journey hasn’t even begun yet.

When I’m on the streets they’re golden in the sun.  It’s 6am and I’m shivering.  I think that in Glasgow it’ll most likely be raining now.  I long for home.  There’s people shouting and police are putting up barriers for a protest later on that day.  I’m surprised at how pristine everything looks.  It’s funny how the buses are actually red.  I know there’s so much more to come from the city at the centre of the world.  London has so much more to show me and as I branch out I feel like I can make it work.    

Into Edinburgh

It was pouring of rain, my shirt was too small, and I was very sweaty as I hurried through Edinburgh.  It was July so it was warm in a thick, consuming way; it was Scotland so it was raining. 

I was lost, and I hated Edinburgh.

The city was to me a town on steroids.  It was quaint, but never having the buzz of a poper city – not like my city, Glasgow.  Like when I begin to drink cider, I immediately long for lager; in Edinburgh, I wish I was pursuing the streets of Glasgow.

Although, there is something very profound about Edinburgh, something almost oppressive.  It sinks in the middle and its concrete buildings rise and encompass you; the hills over here and over there and somewhere, the sea, out of sight but always there, a tangible chill in the air. 

You can feel the heavy weight of Scottish history burdening like a school bag as you emerge from Waverly station.  Trudging up the Royal Mile – dare I risk the labyrinth, the staircase, the alley; the throughways and the by-ways and the people going this way and that ways?  The open spaces green where no river runs.  I can’t float, only hurry.