Were these too lights of boats leaving, leaving her in the translucent night, departing to new worlds without her. She rolled over, her body hitting the water.
Long after the boat had left, she was still sitting on the jetty with her feet in the cold water. The light on the boat was getting increasingly smaller in the darkening night. Now no longer could she hear the engine and nights silence closed in on her like a suffocating embrace. She lay back on the jetty and stared up at the stars, so similar to the light on the boat.
Were these too lights of boats leaving, leaving her in the translucent night, departing to new worlds without her. She rolled over, her body hitting the water.
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Through the roaring of the enraged sea, as the wave crashed over us, us so desperately clinging to what was left of our expedition ship, we could suddenly hear a deep voice yelling out command “ Bring them in before they drown.” The next thing I remember was waking up in a warm, comfortable bed next to a huge window. My eyes needed to adjust to the light but as they did they discovered the fantastic scene outside the window of the mysterious deep-sea world. This was to be the beginning of my epic adventures with my saviour, Captain Nemo.
This image reminded me of a film we did a few years back. I wrote, directed and edited this 15 min short. It was very much a labour of love, working with a unique collection of 19 century, hand painted, Magic Lantern slides, that we animated and set to the story they were intended to tell, that of Jules Verne"20 000 leagues under the sea". Please have a look at our trailer; http://nfornemo.co.uk/trailer.html I hope you will enjoy. V Every day at 14.00 the carers led her to the same arm chair in the same spot. When the other aging actors in the home settled down for their nap, she put on her make up, fixed her hair and sat down facing the small stained glass window leading out to the busy word outside she once was part of. At precisely 14.26 the sun shone through the window in such an angle it found her face like a colourful spotlight. She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth, hearing the rustling of the audience and her lines filled her mind.
Coffee cooling on my desk, spreadsheets to fill and above all look important, more important than the one in the next room. But my window reveals another existence, not for me but for someone else and so tantalizing, why wasn’t it me? The one that got away. I used to have dreams, but they were just clouds in my coffee. Now my coffee is black. Stripped of the creaminess that could bring such luxurious joy. Effective. Should have a spread sheet over that. As my darkness fades to increasingly watered-down grey, my sense of accomplishment fills with regret. .
He had only one thought in mind moving in. This flat, in a glass covered skyscraper, reaching for the sky like a needle through embroidery, where the pristine exterior was mimicked inside, luxury cubicles stacked on top of each other, like a house of cards. It was like floating. This was his goal, to come as close as possible to heavens, to know what angels see, know what God rules and to put himself on his level. But when darkness fell, when night descended in dark velvet drapes, all that was left was his own reflection, in vast black windows.
Pressed between the pages of her old diary, she kept a flower hidden. It wasn’t special in any way, just one she picked when she was a child in her grandmothers back garden. All these years she had kept it safe in the diaries that followed. Always there, she grew up, left for university, got married, had children. Grandchildren. And now when her crooked fingers no longer can hold a pen, it is still there, like a little delicate time machine, giving evidence that there indeed was a time when she was a child, picking the flower with chubby fingers.
It started ever so slowly, with just a few tropical plants self seeding on the immaculate lawn. Like a subtle precursor of what was to come, of her world crumbling and the empire ending, they slowly spread. Quietly she stood by the window in her once magnificent, white colonial manor, turned black from the heat of the tropic, looking out, with her clothes in rags, resembling jungle lianas more than a cool evening dress. Once the strong, the ruler yet now defeated, she stood still, in the last inhabitable room, looking through the broken window and wondered how this happened.
Hunched over her keyboard while the night closed outside the window of her attic flat, she hammered the keys to kill the deafening silence around her. It was a noise that brought her company, like a trusted friend that distracts from a relentless life. Page after page of rambling words, spreading on the screen like climbing poison ivy, incoherent but at least giving alibi of an existence. The moon though, would not be fooled; it found its way through her closed curtains, like a carefully placed interrogation light, demanding to know “what have you done with the life given you?”
Frozen stiff fingers twisting the shoelaces on the skates to grip them. Sharply she tied a bow as the girl wriggled unpatiently, eager to get out on the ice. With a strong stride the child was off and the frozen fingers supported mum on the ground as she stood up. With frozen, stiff knees and a painful back after years of washing dishes in a sink that was too low (she had told him that it was too low, he called her ungrateful and said she could build it herself if she is so smart), she sat down painfully on the hard bench, also too low. And she watched as her daughter enjoy herself.
The hammock rocked my little body gently as I woke up to the smell of slowly roasting meats and newly baked bread resting on a wooden board.
Time went so slow, like sirup pouring. The gentle breeze brought smells from the surrounding woods to combine them with the cooking my mother prepared in her outside kitchen “Are you awake?” she asked gently as she caught me watching her “Here try this . . . .” And her spoon brought the heat and color of Tuscany inside me, close to my heart, while my cheeks still got pinched by the English breeze. Not many people knew this place. And those who did, stayed avay.
It lay desolate, abandoned, a wasteland in the suburbs, far from its former glory, when the ruin was a strong fort, when the moat wasn’t overgrown and small cottages were scattered over the neglected fields. So many lives, destinies ago. For her this was an oasis, somewhere she fled to when she had nothing left to give. When the surrounding world stopped making sense and she needed loneliness. Then she came here and listened to the voices from the ground telling her that they were still alive. In someone else's clothes and on someone else's land, he woke up. With the frost glueing his eyelashes shut, he prise them open to see this fresh march morning. He quickly got up and went through the park to a secluded part by the wall where no-one ever comes. Quickly he looked through the decorative bushes and shrubs to see his carefully nurtured small seedlings growing in the still sharp sun. It was going well. Soon he would be able to harvest his vegetables, he had it all written down. With this and what he earns foraging, it could be a new start, it could be . . .
He had been following her for a while now, ever since she found out. She didn't see him at first, she just sensed his presence. Then one day, when she woke up, he was there, sitting between her and the TV. Ever since then he had been constantly with her, when she went to the doctor or when she woke up in the night as her cough choked her. No one seemed to react to this wolf following an elderly lady down the busy high street, nobody seemed to see him. And although she knew who he was and why he was with her, he became her companion, she was thankful for his company. She even called him Fred.
Lights exploding the window into colourful prisms, like a caleidoscope of an already distorted view. And then they are gone, with the scream of an accerating engine, calmness and then they re-appear as the next car drive through the toll. But inbetween, when the dark night closes, the other booths, like little lanterns on the motorway, glow with a flourescent light, inside a shadow of a life. Neatly in a row, they never fly off with a prayer, with a dream of a better life, they never get caught in the wind. They stay, holding the prayers firmly on the asphalt.
Who is that, never seen him before, he just walked straight past our house.
I wonder where he went, why don’t you go and see where he is heading? I mean what can he be doing here? Quick, lock the door and turn off that light. Should we call the Police? What, are you sure, he left? He took the bus you say? Ohhh… Well, you can never be too careful these day. But did you notice that car parked by the green, it has been there for days now, it never used to . . . . Leaning on the table with the badly damaged books, she wondered how many of them she could fit in her backpack. They needed to be rescued!
One book barely held together, “Spies in WWII”, it was beyond repair. Still she flicked through it, as a farwell. Silently a piece of paper fell from the pages and sailed down to the floor. Her eyes followed it to down and her breath was caught. It was an old photograph, of a man holding a baby. Her eyes fixed on the baby’s face she realised she was looking back in her own eyes. With a smirk the estate agent handed her the paperwork and the keys. But what did he know.
As she opened the door to the dilapidated garage, next to a railroad track, she gasped seeing the huge pile of worn tyres left inside. Climbing over them, armed with a torch, her eyes searching the tyres, eager to see it. The light fell through them until it hit a piece of murky metal. Her pulse increased. She climbed closer, more metal, Bordeaux-coloured. When she saw the registration, she knew. Her hand stretched through the tyres and touched her parents Studebaker. Again. His little hand slipped out of hers, she barely noticed it. But with the warmth suddenly gone and the air filling her palm, she spun around. Overwhelmed by instant panic, crowded by people, the street, her beating heart choked her screams. Her panic escalating further as he was nowhere, until it finally released the scream
“Henry!!!!” His blue eyes suddenly met hers as a shadow disappeared from his side. She couldn’t speak as she held him but her eyes fixed on the shadow as he quickly hid in the crowd. “He just wanted to show me a puppy, Mummy” The scorching wind swept needles of sand over her as she stood in the doorway of the diner. Swiftly she made another selfie and posted it on her blog, “Celebrity Diner” posing exactly like Kim did on page 5. She turned to peak in through the screendoor. The regualars were still eating; soon they would want their coffee, these grey, ordinary, uninteresting people. Kim would never bear being surrounded by avarage like this and neither will she. The pot of coffee was now prepared for them. Today the refills were on the house. Tomorrow is a new life. For her.
Slowly he walked out of the office building after the meeting. He needed some fresh air. His mind was buzzing with what had just happened. The offer was one that many would do anything to get but it would change everything. It was not just a new job, it was a new life, in a different country, with different people. How can he just drop all and go? A smile spread on his face, his cautious mind given way to the adventurous one. What does he have to loose? Maybe this is what it felt like to be successful?
TBC He watched the ferry disappear towards the horizon. He almost got on it this time, close. He turned and walked slowly back to his apartment through the winding streets, his mind filled with the dream of home, always home. 30 years of being a stranger, not being part, different, labelled , always the foreign. He longed to belong but how could he when he was so different? Maybe this place was to blame, it had to be, otherwise there is no hope. There has to be a place for him. Maybe on the other side . . . .
The wind played outside as he looked through the steamed up windows. Autumn was coming but there was still time to build. He had delivered all post this morning and now his bag was heavy with rocks, pebbles and shells. All, except for a postcard of Ghiza, he had never seen Ghiza before.
He wiped the window and taped the postcard on the glass obscuring slightly the towering structure outside. The shape of the pyramids would be perfect for the towers. He would use the rocks in his bag. He, a simple postman that built a Palace in his garden. He closed his eyes and felt his fingers run over the keyboards, the music filled the room. No sheet music, no plan, just his thoughts, magically transformed. Like a diary.
And as a diary it was only for him to hear, noone else. He hid the recordings in his desk and locked it. Only his. But the music found cracks in the closed windows, escaping freely into the fresh air. She always stood there, every day, same time, stood still on the street, listening to these unusual tones, like appearing from nowhere. Leaning on the wall she closed her eyes. They moved in shortly after the Other People had moved out. She was against the move, she didn’t want to leave to live by the new border in someone elses house.
“It is our house now”, he protested, “this is our chance for a house of our own” he stroked her growing tummy. She took all that was left by the Others, clothes, photos, toys, even a mouldy lollypop saved behind a bed for later, threw it on a pile out back, lit it and walked back inside. “Odd”, she though as she watched the flames, “that was easier then I thought.” He lay stiff in the backroom and the floor echoed his paralysis. Blood streamed slowly through the hair and his head fell to one side with his eyes open. The ligth flowed through the expensive bottles on his rack like a caleidoscope of different colours,
Slowly the panic grabbed him, what will happen now, will someone find him, what will happen to the shop if he doesn’t make it? He heard the door open and quite shuffling of feet. One by one the bottles disappeared from the rack. Bottle after bottle they slowly uncovered him. Then they took their bags and left. |
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October 2015
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