Tag: travel

One Ghost Crept In.

Lucy

Silently, he sidled up, to speak to me of his death.

He stepped into my inattention, my rapt, lost, quiet moment, empty of all thought, anchored in this place—he stepped in through an open door.

Silently, I greeted him.

He spoke quietly, but somehow, not in words, and told me—of the cold, and slipping, of the body drawn, and stopping. Told me—of his heart, raced-heartbeat, its reaching, its long-slow,

and stopping.

He told me—why.

As I listened, the weak sunlit sky of day was made all dark. I saw the spotlights’ circles flash and search, their beams made crossed swords clashing. I heard the rain that made the river rise to meet the sky, made water of the air, and suffocated the swimmer’s breath. I too was drawn, lost in liminal spaces, not in time, but drawn, and drowning. Before us ran the river; beneath our feet and at our backs grey stone drew closer, tighter, rain-wet and black, spotlight-flashed.

Silently, I listened.

He told me—of setting Westward stroke, night fallen, of swimming through the dark. I heard the siren stir; the blood in me was pulsed. He told me—or was it that I heard them?—of bullets cutting course through water. Told me—

this is where I died.

From the door, left ajar, cold breeze whispered, made ice of bones, deep-seeping under skin.

And silently,

still, the river ran.

It was a very New York story.

Lucy

The subway was fetid with humidity. Taking the detour uptown to change my clothes had been a wasted effort. A dark patch already flourished at the armpit I had to raise to reach the overhead holds as I rode the train back down to the East Village; by the time I made it to the top of the exit stairway sweat clung to the skin of my stomach and grabbed stickily at my shirt.

Emerging onto Essex Street was barely a relief. A solid bank of dark clouds lowered the ceiling of the sky, and there was no breeze besides the cool flow of air-con escaping from shop doors.

It was a regulars-welcome kind of bar, oblong and small. The kind of bar where the very arrangement of the furniture encouraged either solitude or intimacy. It was a lovers-and-loners kind of bar.

We had the place to ourselves for a few hours. It was still the afternoon; the bar hadn’t got going yet. He poured them, and I drank. Memory licked at the edges of the picture, thick and sweet as the blueberry-flavoured liqueur in my glass.

A bar for lovers and loners. But which one was I?

A Re-Write Into Fiction.

Lucy

High above the call of the crows there came another bird’s sound—its long, high, warbled note implied a sweeping, swooping seabird. It was several days before she glimpsed them through the window, their smooth skyward sweep taking them high above the crows. They were disdainful of the courtyard and its window-cages; they circled the sky above the building-tops, and settled only on high roofs where they would have a view across the sea.

A cat, with white forepaws and a piebald behind, slunk across the top of a wall, paused, silent and still, to gaze into the garden below, continued, slipped under the barbed wire ringing the yard, and slipped precipitously down a tree to the ground. Later she saw him settled to his purpose, head down and ears pricked, crouched with latent spring in every muscle. He sat sentry over a corner of the dusty trodden-earth yard, eyes fixed on a shadowy border-planting of deep green growth. It seemed, for a long moment, that the only movement in the yard came from the slowly shifting shadows of the thick old drop tree at its heart.

A Place You Can Slip Into.

Lucy

Each place we connect with teaches us something — leaves something embedded within us. Some layer of the city’s smudge, some scent of countryside that clings, some pulse that enters the heart and lingers.

Then there always is its pace somewhere inside you — the pace of the place — its rhythms, its moods — a place you can slip into.

The North Star.

Lucy

How I felt upon seeing that bright spot in the sky.

A single, bright star.

So long had I been gazing upon a different sky that I was quite shocked to see it. A single, bright, close star.

My eyes glued to the star as the taxi streaked quietly on into the gloaming, and the star through the window grew only brighter.

And again, she thought that she might cry.

To England, where my heart lies.

Sweet hymnal music and the chirp of springtime’s birds.

Brickwork, colours so varied and subtle, aged. Repainted, refreshed, changed, restored.

Pink Mayfair! Oh, glory!

Just to walk there — here, there, and everywhere — just to walk there is to live. Not for so long — so long — have I felt so alive.

London. The Warmest April Day Since 1949.

Lucy1 Comment

Blossom and birdsong in The Regent’s Park.

Meadow-like lawns scattered with white daisies.

French women chatter over yoga on the playing fields.

A spaniel barks, demands his mother’s attention.

Edgeware Road to Park Lane. Skirting the edges of Hyde Park sparkling bright green in the sun, blue-and-white-striped deckchairs unfolded everywhere.

Into Mayfair. Colours of the brickwork, shades of dusky pink, white, grey charcoal blue.

Spotted Berkeley Square, and suddenly Piccadilly and the Burlington Arcade sparkling with diamonds.

Regent Street, the Circus.

St James Square thronging at lunchtime. Another pair of men in blue suit-pants, white shirts, take-away lunch in hand, ‘seems everyone’s had this idea.’ The entirety of smart London offices spilled into the square burbling with chatter. Beds of vibrant bulbs. From behind me, the popping of a champagne cork.

Suburban Train Line.

Lucy

Mumbai — February 2018.

Heroes hang out of the doorways, vying to be soonest on the ground, dangle their feet above the passing platform, waiting for the perfect moment to strike in their soft-soled sandals.

Hot polyester suits scratch buttock-to-buttock.

A eunuch slaps the shoulders of the first-class passengers, dark-eyed in khol.

A pure plaintive song somewhere behind me. A girl sings, untrained but sweet-voiced, holds out her hand, slim and fragile, turns — not a girl, a woman. But 35 or 50? Her face ravaged, eyes blind.

Sounds.

Lucy

Bandra, Mumbai — February 2018.

The crows and sweeping seabirds; garden chirps.

The elevator’s high-pitched tune (Fur Elise?), and the banging of its metal gate, indecorously flung open and shut as residents shunted up and down the building.

The rise and fall of auto motors outside, the note of their rattling rumbling mumble changing always as they sped and slowed.

The call of a walla moving up and down the street, nasal, songlike, punctuated by the ringing of his bicycle bell.