There’s confusion in the air, mixed with salt and tarmac
and all that bloody dog poo. It’s not mind blowing, more
gliding from pebble to post and realigning pillars and posts.
Recovering from being stuck behind a Sunday driver on the
single lane section of the A21, I enjoyed the pomp and
pageantry with the best view - St Mary in the Castle,
Pelham Place; Where they burn celebrity effigies and their
failing youth, exclaiming OFF WITH THEIR HOODS!!! “You’d
better watch out, the out-of-towners are coming back to
town.” As if I didn’t know. I smelled her before I met her
and still I held her hand and pulled her up to share my view.
She hadn’t yet been to the Jerwood for fear of bumping into
people she once knew. Chance encounters with old classmates
who’d look down on and through her, she explained. Besides,
passing observations through the window had told her all she
needed to know. On her way to the off licence, marvelling
at the sky’s cloud formation; gold and silver lines… Far
beyond the ghostly skeleton frame, joggers, wind surfers,
burger and ice-cream vans. Somewhere over the vast grey
matter and beyond the multi-coloured distant landmass, she
once played with boys and double-barrelled finger guns along
a shiny school corridor. Aiming at relative strangers in a
valley of little people who’d been asked to leave their class.
Punished for disrupting progress then turning on each other
out of boredom and for fun.