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.

In field. (A shortish story.) Part 1.

Setting out.

Its seems a lot slower. The day is wasted on me at present. And so I’m sitting in my room looking out at the field across the road. I’m thinking of drifting off. I’m thinking that the dream is tangible. Too stay and think and not too act is what I have. Too go, too jump, to run, to accelerate beyond known limits is what I think I can do.The field across the road, the wood further beyond, its framed my world for so long. Its had me painted as ineffectual subject matter for too long. I need to smash the frame. I need to dash from view. I don’t want to allow them to paint me as their own any longer. I wish, sitting here now, to break the brush, to jolt the stroke. I wish to jump from this window, straight across the road and into the field. Sipping this water in my hand I feel I have brought about greater command of my movements.

Cricket.

Football is banned. Organised games that is. It simply cannot match up to the glories of cricket. Cricket is decent. Cricket relies on decency and sportsmanship, football no longer does. Football is truly the game of the people, however it too much replicates and magnifies the reality of the people. Cricket still lives by the staunch rules. It stands out as a light to be followed. The only forms of football permitted are forty fives and keepy-ups. Football is a beast gone lame. Too much bad comes from it in enclosed circles. This is the only rule that I enforced during my entire time in the field. I don’t really know how it happened but after a couple of weeks others began to join me. It may have been the smoke form the fire. They may have heard of a guy washing in the stream. I don’t know. I remember the first few. They came out of the growing evening from the road across towards me. As is my way I quickly quietened the fire and lay down to sleep. In the morning as the grass tickled my check I woke and enjoyed a decent breakfast surrounded by the new bodies who too themselves were gently woken by the scratch of grass.

Buried.

A dead body is strange to hold. It brings about a bubble of the un-normal. The change is so very sudden, everything becomes touched by it. I burnt my clothes, sat in the stream for hours. The grave I dug was pitiful, but what else could he have expected. To do it out here, so isolated there could be hardly any other choice. I thought later should I have carried it out. Should I have done more, but then again the idea of what had been done shortened everything. He couldn’t be angry. I did him a service. But I will never go back that way again.

Structure.

Its funny how you very soon begin to lose grasp of things. Time, after a while, becomes irrelevant. I suppose this abandonment was part of the reason I came to the field in the first place. Abandonment might be the wrong word, it might be more of a separating of the ways. I wanted to release myself, change from the order of things. It really is funny because I do enjoy order, structure is a decent handle to hold on to. Its just that you can find yourself sometimes bound by enforced structure. A structure seen as the norm, the accepted, the staple. Structure I think is any form of living, surely even non-structure is a form of structure, just an erratic one. I think my coming here was a chance at building my own structure. Of ending one breath and starting another.

The girl with the black hair.

One of the girls. She had long dark black hair. Very black indeed. She began to cook all of the meals. Indeed this period was very nice. We seemed quite contented me and them. Although it was different to have these newcomers around I soon found it a happy arrangement. The girl was the black hair seemed to me very young. There was a possibility I thought that she could be as young as sixteen or seventeen. She carried with her a very natural manner though. One that placed me at ease with her. She had a beautiful smile and watery eyes, that seemed to swallow experiences second after second. We took walks around the field together and sometimes even into the one opposite. By now the summer had stretched into three long weeks of heat. Our bodies raced each other to see who’s would be the first to turn brown. Days seemed to flow by sitting in the sun. it had never shone so well before we all agreed. Sometimes I would look back at the house. I would think about all that I was before. As my hands ran through the grass I would think myself brave for taking the plunge. For changing rather than continuing on.

The triangular tunnel.

I have this dream. No I don’t. I keep having this dream, that’s better. Its about a triangular tunnel. Except its not actually a tunnel its more of a bridge. I don’t know why I think of it as a tunnel its probably because its completely enclosed. It has thick tubular pipes and darkened glass running along its sides. I keep on having this dream. I dream that I am walking along the shinning middle of this tunnel. The white marble pathway sings underneath my feet as I step. But I never know where I am going. Where I have come from. There is nothing else inside this bizarre structure just me. Always walking. Always moving along not knowing where too. Its very strange. However its not as if I allow it to encroach on my time. It is not something that troubles me. If anything I enjoy this dream. It feels very personal, in a way that is very hard to define. All I know is that I have this dream and I wish to continue having it. The only thing that occupies me during the day about this dream is that I find it strange that before I was here I did not have it. Before I came to the field, I had many dreams, most of them about coming here. But I’m here its only about the triangular tunnel.

My Bubble.

I seem to carry a bubble around me. It stretches four or five feet. I’ve been growing it for a while, it’s a safety net. I don’t know if anyone else has one, I just know I do. I’m thinking of trying to expand it. Just imagine a mile wide bubble, just me alone, swinging along.

The field opposite.

It began to amaze me how it seemed that every morning I would wake up and more people would be around. I soon became lost amongst the number. At times I would stand at the far end of the field and watch what seemed like endless streams of people coming from the road into the field. For the first time I wondered what the owner of the field might think of all this. One person is fine. Is no trouble. Five, ten ok. But now it was pushing over sixty, seventy maybe. Pushing through a fence I crawled into the next field and set about walking it. The long grass rubbed at my shins. I stopped about halfway and sat down hiding myself from view. I think I sat for a few hours. I’m not sure if you can call this mediation. I think of it as medication for sure. The gentle wind rolled across the top of the grass and cooled the top of my head. I was amazed at the amount of noise that could be heard from the field. There was large whooping sounds. A sort of mass humming constantly raced the wind to reach me first. I don’t know if that was my first point of confusion but it certainly brought about a regression in me. When I finally retuned to the field I moved my place of sleeping away from the bulk of the others. I moved closer to the wood.

Tromlee.

At times in the field I would talk and people would listen. They wouldn’t often ask me questions, or perhaps they did and I just didn’t answer. Anyway the one thing they did want to know was what I called this place. Up until that time it was simply the field. Always the field. The field opposite, over the road. It was always referred to as the field. You had the field then the wood and further the greater wood beyond. Some days later I answered Tromlee. Most of them had forgotten asking in the first place and in fact maybe they hadn’t asked at all. A few weeks later as I was sitting by the fence that road beside the road Lucy came and sat with me. ‘Why Tromlee?’ see asked, eyes brightly open, encouraging me. Smiling I leaned closer and kissed her on the forehead. It was hot and salty with sweat. ‘Tromlee was our ancestral home’ I explained ‘or so I am lead to believe, its in Scotland, it’s a wide open place, loch Tromlee, not much of it’s left now but still an important place for those minded to remember it!’

Baba O’Rielly

One day. I’m not sure when. It was in the past. When I was still living in the field, before I moved further into the wood. It was when the sun was really hot. But I suppose it always felt that way before because we we’re out in the open with nothing to protect us from the burning sun. someone starting playing music. They had set up a CD player or radio perhaps and the sound was filling out across the grass. I didn’t mind this, like most things at the beginning it was different, it held the attention of those gathered, so it seemed alright. I laid back and stared at the clouds. One song came on and it took hold of me. I jumped to my feet and felt transformed by it. I felt my feet begin to race beneath me. I felt overwhelmed by the sounds. Soon I was racing around the field. The song Baba O’Rielly just inflated me so much. Around and around the filed I whirled. By the time the music stopped I felt as though I had run for miles. Collapsing in exhaustion I lay with my hands over my eyes glorying in the second. Sadly I overheard the excited chatting of some others, they were talking of the fun it was too run about the field to music. I had not realised any others had followed my actions. Peering through the gaps in my fingers I saw scores of tanned bodies all collapsed upon the floor. Talk was of making this a regular thing. However I knew that this was a stupid thing to do. The original thrill could never be recaptured, everything else would be forgery. I never outwardly ran about to Baba O’Rielly again.

My hut.

My hut is mine. It’s the only thing I’ve ever called mine.

Docked points.

Apparently I am to be docked points. Something very strange has taken hold of this place. A type of peoples republic seems to be growing. I was informed by committee that due to my lack of effort in my allotted duties I am to be deducted points. This is all very bizarre. I am amazed at how quickly things have morphed into such a uniformed state. Jeremy now seems to hold sway over everything. He is like some over-lord frantically mapping out this entire field as his own domain. I walked away from the ‘meeting’ and paced the perimeter fence. Its very hard to accept all that is happening here. I know I have no voice to stand up and protest. Maybe that is not entirely true, I have a voice for myself, I feel damn sure of that, however I do not want to become some form of rebel leader. I do not want to fight against something that I truly do not care about. They can do what they want I suppose, who am I to stand up and argue against what they have set in motion. I have always been all for people searching out there own formula, its perhaps time that I left them to it and went my own way.

Fever.

I wake in fever almost every morning. It’s like I’m lost again. I really struggle to understand myself at times. I have such a struggle to strive for a position. The field seemed like the answer before but now its becoming a camp just like the one I fled. I question myself all the time! Is it me. Am I twisted to chase the same failings over and over?

Tommo

Tommo had found the field by accident. He had spent fourteen months travelling Europe. His tales of grape picking in France really filled me with joy. I wished as he spoke that I had met him before all this. Maybe I could have gone with him. Maybe I could have discovered wonderment on the road, it could have brought fulfilment, enchantment, direction. Tommo had unlike all the others, including me, come from within the woods. One afternoon this raged figure jaunted out of the line of trees, duffle bag slung over his shoulder, hanky round his neck. He said that his van had broken down on the far side of the wood and giving it up for dead he had set off in search of anything that could be found.Tommo had a theory. One that I liked indeed. He said that everything had an exhaustible tank. Every feeling, emotion, every period of time, every sight and sound. He said that for example he no longer cried because it had been run dry in him. He said everything should be gloried and worshipped as if it was the last time it would exist. I liked Tommo he had an ability to assimilate anywhere. He stuck out yet he always fitted in. he was like a chameleon absorbing each background perfectly. I could not be like this, if I was silent I could maybe. However I’ve been assured that my face cannot help but show all that I am.

I do not command leadership.

One of the girls got sick. She started to complain of dizziness. She had trouble sleeping at night. I was not sure how to react to this. It seemed as if they looked to be for leadership. I did not command leadership. I did not enter the field to be a leader I explained. I had come here and so had they. They should be fit to be here in every way. They should not be fit to be here as well I thought. All of it was not a satisfactory period. If someone had come with the express notion to doctor people then so be it. However I was not here to guide or save. They did not like my reasoning. The girl did not get better and soon she was taken back to the road. I think that after this I was not seen as being a leader again. Thinking about it I find it all hard to fathom. I had taken a decision on myself. They too I thought had taken a decision and that was that.

Picking flowers.

Since I moved away on my own I have enjoyed the company a whole lot more. I’ve never been one to suffer on my own. I knew a guy once who, when left alone, would literally bite off his own fingers. This always seemed puzzling to me. Like he must have some great horror to protect himself from, some regressed memory perhaps. Obviously this is a silly observation. But I never struggled on my own. it’s a freeing up process that is integral to my operating. The openness of engaging in the whole canopy of thought of really being able to fan out everything I liked. Its kind of like the silence is there as a challenge for my consciousness to fill. The strange noises from where I had left continued to grow. I was not entirely sure as too what was making them however I was definite that I did not want to become part of whatever was emerging. I reckoned it possible that there numbers were growing. Lucy had not come to see me for a while and I put this down to the fact that she would be cooking for greater numbers. Even if she had of come we did not talk about that place anyway. She was such a good type that I did not even have to ask her to reframe. She would simply whisper through the foliage towards my shelter and we would act as if she had merely been to the field to pick flowers. She called me her holiday. She said I was the sun, she would come and be invigorated by me. I called her my love. We sat and talked and then spent evenings laying under the stars breathing in unison. Then in the morning she would be gone and I would continue as if she had simply gone to the field to pick flowers.

I ate some mushrooms.

I’ve been thinking that this is probably regression. It wasn’t so many years ago that we went the other way, we all came out of the fields and into houses. Now look at this around me, something must have gone wrong! Was there ever a plan. At the start did some people get together and say lets have roads, bungalows, tea cups, trainers! Was it all part of the blueprint, I doubt it was. You could start a new plan I reckon, list new things like talking sheep, walking in the sky, freedom, liberation! Its strange how in a world of our own making we cant simply reset. If everything’s busted just sit down and say right stop, we’ll have another go. Were only fighting each after all, it could be stopped!

The mound

I’m not quite sure when but I realised that everybody was beginning to congregate around the large mound at the most northern part of field. You see I had began the task of separating myself from it all. I hardly ever entered the belly of beast as it were. At night there was no other lights but those on top of the mound. I had begun my walks into the wood at this point. Just gentle strolls visually mapping its intricacies, preparing myself for what was too come. The mound had a gentle rise on one side and then a much steeper one at the rear. This bank ran down into the wood. And it was from here that I got my closest look at what was growing. Meetings began to be called. I keep on hearing talk of tasks being handed out. Over the next few days I noticed that the mound had started to grow. It became larger, far too large for the field it became imposing, oppressive almost. Then later whilst I was sitting by the big rock at the bend of the stream Jeremy came over and kicked up the water. ‘We should build some huts’ he said, the water still frothing. ‘I doubt we need huts!’ I said quietly. However he had begun to walk away. ‘We need to prepare for the weather, we need to provide warmth for all our people.’ Soon the huts were being built upon the mound and I began to separate myself from all that was happening.

Climbing trees.

The best time is always out in the wood. Sometimes I feel like I may have found what I was searching for. Other times I know I haven’t. I miss Tommo, I want to find other people like him. You see everything about me is totally dual. Duality ruins me. I’m driven by desire to be singular yet want to lauded. I tried to climb some trees, it reminded me of being young. I thought about playing football, I love football, but its ruined. I love young football, running all day long, getting light headed, thirty seven too forty score lines. Get hit in the face by a dangerously worn ball, climbing roofs to fetch lost ball. But footballs not like this any more, much like everything, I think I need to find further passions.They talk in a language I don’t understand. I don’t think its me, I believe their regressing. They huddle together, like secret little gangs, throwing up vile meaningless phrases.Why do they hunt me, why cant they see everything is different, its good to be one. If everybody was the same the world would be a very boring place!I’ve got to stop worrying about it all. Its meaningless, it drags me from other important issues. I noticed they’d hacked away at some of the trees that run along the edge of the field. What right have they got to do this. Why cant they let it all be as it should be.