In The Darkness, Hiding: Along the Stour

Monday, 27 April 2009

Along the Stour

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Sundown

A bird this deep in the heart of the city was a wonder enough for one day.

At first blink, it was a scrap of fabric or cardboard worn out of shape by heat and rain. At second blink, a sparrow. Trailing my fingers along the blistering shopfronts, blinking eyes open, eyes shut, I almost didn’t notice it had feathers in time to avoid treading on it. A dirty cock sparrow, grey with accumulated layers of dust, its eyes still wide and bright.

No sign of any struggle; it lay crushed and spent in a bend where the pavement was wider than normal. The hot wind, or perhaps the ceaseless movement of the crowd, had pushed it into a gap between two paving slabs.

Still available in Issue 0 of GUD Magazine!

The Grey

It was grey. It was grey when the sun was supposed to come up, and it was grey when it was supposed to go down. For days, we hadn't even seen the sun.

Christmas.

Eighty years ago, maybe more, maybe less, they had these fogs, or smogs. In cities. People wore masks, so they could breathe.

The day before Christmas Eve, two o'clock in the afternoon, and it's grey. The crazy thing is that although it isn't Christmas everywhere, and it isn't two o'clock, everywhere, it's grey, everywhere. On land. At sea. Southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere. Everywhere.

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In The Darkness, Hiding

Monday, 27 April 2009

Along the Stour

0 comments:

In The Darkness, Hiding

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