In field part 2

They say I’m ignorant.

They teased me a lot. They said I was quiet, ignorant. They said I didn’t use my time wisely. I could always feel a certain expression grow upon my face when these times came around. I always felt no-plus by it all. Sometimes I would attempt to explain my reasons for being as I was, but it all seemed pointless. Everyone had their reasons. Everyone did as they saw correct. I did notice however that some had a need to be shepparded. That although they called this their ‘get away’ they had no idea what to do with it. I said I let everything happen as it did. That to expel everything else and allow yourself the time and space to freely think of what it is you truly need, was my ideal. You see sometimes I would talk and what came out even surprised me. That was because through everything I really didn’t know what was going on. That is to say I didn’t have some grand scheme, I wasn’t playing along to a timetable, everything was meant to be organic, that was the point in it for me.

Forty fives.

There was a fight. I was standing by the fence watching as a group played forty fives. The score was forty-thirty five to the keeper. The wind was blowing across from the far end and I noticed that the grass had been worn away in large patches. This was the first time that I had noticed our effects upon the field. The wind picked up reams of loose earth and scooted it along. This did stick in my throat. I though of it a little as the beginning of some urbanisation. Like we were draining the field of its natural state, turning it into some barren user friendly living space. The fight quickly took hold. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the collision between the hefty red headed lad and the much smaller framed keeper. The melee rapidly involved all those playing. The ball rolled away from them and stopped close to where I was resting. I thought about revisiting my rules on football, maybe it should be banned altogether, maybe I should burst the ball right now. The ruckus continued. The thing about fighting, about real fighting, not the imaginary stuff you see on television, but real up close open anger, is how vicious it is. I winced at the un-caged brutality. I think I knew as the wind caught another handful of earth that this place was headed for a different station than I.

Dog walker.

I bumped into a dog walker, he beat me with a stick.

Portaloo

A sudden blot on the view sprung up. I bet it was Jeremy. I woke after the worst nights sleep and there it was. Casting its shadow over my torso, a black line sharp across my neck, cutting off my air. I didn’t question it. The same day I overheard some people questioning the rule about football, they saw me and didn’t stop, they probably don’t know me from any of the others. I gathered my bits and for the first time I moved closer to the wood.

Shiny metal woman.

I had another dream this time it was about a metal woman. So shiny standing out in the middle of the field. Her silver skin bounced about in the sun. Shimmering waves danced a coloured halo all about her. I sat at the feet of this woman and gazed lovingly into her blinking visor. Her buzzing voice run up my spine pricking at my ears. I told Lucy of this dream because she has a very easy listening way, however she did not seem to like what I said. It was as we were picking wild berries from the bushes. Another girl joined us she was one of the newer comers. She had expensive sandals and dark sunglasses. She spoke excitedly of skiing in France and dancing in the snow. I was quiet it was as if I was a different season. She openly looked at me as she picked berries and genuinely listened as I repeated the story about my dream, yet she simply could not comprehend anything to do with it. I could have been speaking Moroccan far all she knew, what I said just completely didn’t register on her dial. She called me weird, not in a harmful way, and dragged Lucy off to skip back to the field.

Daydream.

I like to daydream. I think its my minds way of keeping healthy. I saw myself as a free spirit, I left everything behind in a sky blue campervan. I picked fruit in Italy. The sun blessed my shoulders with mammoth power and the culture gave my fingers delicate skill. I fell for a brown girl, who’s dark hair looked like treacle. We worked all day and lazed all evening. We loved each other. We loved that version of each other. I was happy in this instant. I rode a vesper and looked the dogs. I met the girls family, they supplied the greatest meal ever, meats, oil, olives, beer, wine, we had it all. I looked into her eyes sitting on her fathers front lawn and asked her to marry me. My mind had me there for years to come, children everything. I grew cold.An accident took it all away. The duality came back. It smacked me in the eyes. I got a better job, drank more, got greedy, self obsessed. I found many lovers, none of them a patch on my wife. They offered deep dark wants, dirty fantasies that I thought I had to scratch. I became a bastard, fat, greasy unloving. I killed a man and his young son on the motorway. My drunken car smashed them into oblivion. I slept through most of it and never knew the full bastardisation of my actions. It was cold.The daydream came to an end and I realised I hadn’t even given her a name! Some fantasy that was, I’m not so great as I may think!

The last time

The last time I ever went back to the field, back to where they all are, not back to where I first slept under the blue sky, where I and the first few stayed, but the mound, my head felt frozen.I had gone back without much thought. I still liked to walk in the wood. I had followed the stream for a while and quite by accident came back to the foot of the mound where I had set up my first little shack. It was now very different. Huge wooden stakes sat rammed into the soil. A massive shadow fell out across the ground. It was very cold here now, dead. I stood unsure whether I wanted to continue any further. I noticed a group gathered a little further down the stream. I recognised one of them as Lucy. We were happy to see each other, we hugged and kissed. I noticed something strange as she introduced me as her special friend. They were all wearing the same weird shirts. They were dark red and written on them in thick letters they all had printed on them the same two worded slogan ‘People’s Commune’. without really knowing why I agreed when Lucy suggested that I come up to the mound. It was only as we made our way up the perfectly kept path that I began to realise that everything had changed far beyond my comprehension. The wooden stakes that I saw I soon realised were the huge legs of a massive viewing platform. Upon it hundreds of people stood peering out across the visual freak of the People’s Commune.

Slaughterhouse 5

On one of my walks I came across good old Tommo’s van. Once bright orange, it sat ravaged, sad, alone. Bits of it lay scattered all around. I saw it from far away. Sitting abandoned feet from the mud track. The back doors were wide open, it was obvious from quite far away that it had been misused. It had been run through. Inside I found half a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I took it.I chased off various animal and insect intruders, vainly trying to defend Tommo’s honour. After some time I gave it in and left the van. The book was really very good, I would expect nothing less from Tommo. One bit in particular really got me going, it was the creatures of Tralfamadore. They didn’t see time in any linear form but everything all together. What is, was and has been in one ever present vision. For example they ‘don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, they see them as great millipedes with babies legs at one end and old peoples legs at the other.’ I read this over and over and tried to see how it could change my way of viewing things.

field.

Again the triangular bridge.

I had the dream of the triangular bridge again. It stood high up above the wood, its shadow casting out over everything. I felt special in its presence, like it was mine, like I was meant for it. The dreams were now coming very regular. It even seemed like I resented waking up. It was as if being awake was an obstacle to my obsession. Something else happened. Something that because of all the dreams and the annoyance at being awake might not of actually happened. It really is hard to fathom. You see I had taken to walking even further, merely as a means to tire myself out. Every day I trudged through the wood just waiting for the time that I would drop of. However one afternoon I was approaching a clearing some way past where I had come across Tommo’s van. I remember certain bits better than others, which makes me question whether I did in actual fact come across a man committing suicide. You see I remember the sound, the crushed gargle. The freeze in my step, the crouching behind a fallen tree. Yet other bits make me question my sanity. Because I didn’t try to help, I didn’t scream, run for help, I didn’t do anything. I watched as a man struggled and then gave in. As minutes later the branch snapped and his lifeless body fell thudding to the ground.

Marseille

I daydreamed again. We had gone to Marseille. Two young ideas floating along with untarnished gayety. Two bags of skin and self indulgence, we grew as the immigrants slinked along the dusted paths. The sun shone like Camus had intended and we drank it up. Sitting on a high wall overlooking the port I glinted in the expanding boundaries, some Arabs talked and urinated near-by, it was all worthy of writing down.We were robbed by a taxi driver and miscalculated the exchange rate.We sat and chatted, drank espresso and kicked stones for dogs to chase. Our money ran out and we ate like locals, bread and cheese, the odd chocolate pot, banana’s. Red wine seeped into our lungs and we coughed the continental air, it was all very lucent.

Rain.

I stood in the rain for hours and wished to be washed away. It didn’t happen. I packed up what little things I had and went further into the wood. The trees were large and the light darker. The air was cold. It seemed as if I was the only person who had ever gone this far. Yet this illusion was smashed when I caught a torn poster drifting on the air. It was for the people’s commune. A list of entrance prices ran down one side. you’ve got to laugh at these type of things after a while, otherwise it really will destroy you. It was a good job that the poster was torn because if I had read anything further I might have gripped my things tighter and walked on forever through the wood.

I went further.

I went further into the wood, further than ever before and I came across the end. The end of the wood, the end of the world! Nothing but the triangular tunnel, nothing but the shiny metal woman. There I was alone at the end of the wood and ahead only future, progression I suppose. I could feel the branches and thorns still clinging to my back. I could hear the wood begging me back. I could hear myself, one version of myself, the long linear line of me stretched out with all that had been and yet to be, I could feel desperation to return. But ahead the tunnel, the shiny woman, the future of forward progression. There was fear bulging in my throat. A fear of failure, or failing to find what I needed, what I expected I needed to survive. Yet the beauty of what lay ahead shone so very gloriously in my eyes. I wanted it, the change, the chance to be new, to develop beyond what I was. And so I stepped on and brought forward greater command of my movements.