Pink Buses

Steam comes off the mug. The smell of coffee. The sound of conversation. Buses float past the window.

It's no Ulysses.

Why did I put on those shoes? My feet freeze underneath white socks.

It was nice to see them again. The cat, the sofa, the cinammon. Madonna on the screen. This was her drug phase. Legs like stalks under denim. Taking the present was embarrassing, but she let me open it. I touched the cat and it scarpered. Not like my Tilly.

I wonder where that house exists now? With the artwork, and the bookcase, and the pregnant woman staring out from the mantlepiece.  Kitchen conversations spread out before me like a yellow brick road. The snow outside. Brown-eyed intensity. The cat holds out its paw.

They put me on the sofa to calm me down. Be gentle, be gentle. Mint tea in a green mug. W came in smelling of alcohol. It will all be ok. It will all be ok. Classical music swirled. The silhouette leered out from above the fence.

And now the pink buses. People smoking out on the street. The trees are bare and the sky is drab, but at least the snow has thawed. A steaming bowl of chilli sits on the table.

Not moving on to bigger and better things. This is my career.

Gran looks so old now. She seems to be shrinking into the ground. That man flickers like a nightmare. Give me money and it'll all be ok. Their faces in the mirror. I've been here before. The whole world exists in my head.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Who was sitting on the plane beside Meatloaf?

But she is here now. The real thing. Not a simulacrum, not a dream. Sitting here in her blue cardigan.

The fields, the avenue, the little  room where I spent Saturday night. Like returning from a sleep, or waking from a coma. But what next?

Silver buddha looked out at me from the top of the drawer. Have you forgotten? The woman on the bag shot out an accusing look. But my head was fried. Now things are safe.

A pot of chilli. The club exactly the same. The lights shining out of our eyes as we danced on the stage. We turn ourselves into fireworks, screaming out the lyrics like we see them. Hands up in the air we become. Cameras flashing. Facebook screen. Dark taxi home. I didn't have time to fill up the hot water bottle.

I dreamt I went back to school. I was so happy to see the kids again. I put my arm around M. I told Anne Brazier that I'd had a dream and I wanted to come back. I know I had to. Happy Calshot faces stare out from the screen. How could I do it to them?

But that office, and J breathing down my neck. Sitting there in the dark wanting to go home. But this is the dream! The outstanding school obscured by snow.

They were quietly working. The old woman sat at the back of the room making notes. The snow fell down softly. I stood by the window, watching. I knew I would never return. Frozen for all time happy eleven year olds. Life progresses, disappointments march. But they are frozen forever. J's office. The frantic marking, preparing. Anne Brazier's face turns away. He shan't return.

But then that place looms out like a nightmare. Monkeys on the phone. Empty space. Desperate trips to the coffee machine. How could I leave them like that?

Where's Mr Hawthorne?

Mr Hawthorne will not be returning.

Sad faces, let down, abandoned. Torturing the new teacher to pay her back for my betrayal. I can't bear it. I block it out over and over again. The advert on the website. Temporary English Teacher required ASAP.

Still. I am glad to be here. I looked at S and D with bemusement. Here they were, once again on my screen. Blood thicker than water. The ties that bind us are strong and will last forever. I catch myself in the mirror. What was that dream? May we never forget. The bright morning sunshine. Sitting in our whites on the train.

Die once and be afraid of nothing ever after. Lazarus rises from the tomb. Bandages unfurl and float down to the sea. I jump in. It's not Ulysses.

The light fades from an already dark sky. The pebbles crunch underneath my feet. I sit cross legged beneath the moon. The pier sparkles on the ocean. An orange light hovers in the sky.

The image fades. Blondie plays on the radio. Animated conversations all around. Time to move on. Sorry kids. Show's over. You'll get over it.

Roads

Storm

In the morning light

I feel

Purple Sheets

Is it normal?
To want your body to melt into the purple sheets until it's no longer there?
Moving, twisting, stretching and floating in and out of dreamless sleep I don't want to be a person today. I want to stay here in this personless space, where there is only the soft sheeted darkness enveloping me like mist.

Fragments

Flicking through it appeared. Cute smile, cheeky face. And the other one, the dangling jumper. What a dangling it was. The black leather sofa and the sweat and the noise. You were so fucking cute with your smooth skin and your pink lips. And we'll not go down below because it isn't fair on me to recall the immensity.  But it wasn't that, you made me laugh. Not like the pretentious tosspots one normally meets in this self-styled bohemian paradise. Individualism couldn't be more self concious if it tried. But not you. You were really warm.

So what happened? We went out on dates, we chatted, we had fun. Texts were sent like ping pong balls every day.  Did I come on too strong that last time? Was the sex so mind-blowingly good that it could never be repeated?  Walking back through Brighton that hot August night with a smile painted on my face and the vegetation dancing through my nose, did I realise that it was the ending, and not the beginning?

I didn't really notice it happening. Didn't realise how much I liked you. I can't remember if it was you or me. It just dripped away into nothingness. It didn't really bother me to be honest, just a bit of fun. I was too busy anyway. So I let it go. I forgot about it.

But I see the pictures by accident all these months later and I realise, I think, something. I'm not sure what. the laughter, the summer, the black sofa, the sweat, the taste of your tongue all came back to me in a moment, like a lightbulb flashing on for a second

Before turning back to darkness.

Happy Snow Day

A and I ventured out in the snow to buy whiskey and lemons. The snow crunched beneath our feet. The sounds of happy people throwing snowballs vibrated down the empty road. I started humming 'Winter Wonderland' and skipping like a child on Christmas Eve.

Steam floated out of mugs smelling of cinnamon.

I trudged back on my own. Three orange lanterns floated in the sky, above the snow. The stars shimmered and reflected off the white road while snow floated down like feathers. I had gone through a wardrobe and entered Narnia.

I was about to enter my house and turn on the TV when a magnetic force pulled me towards the sea. I turned around and changed direction.

I walked down the road like someone in a dream. Everything had been transformed. The snow continued falling through the black. There was something in the air. People were no longer walking through their lives asleep. The familiar had become strange and they actually saw it, as if for the first time.

Hundreds of black shapes on the grass. Running, skipping, laughing, jumping. Two dogs whirled around in a magical dust storm. The light from a firework illuminated their faces.

The pavillion ice rink glowed like a beacon. Purple haze shot out into the dark. The canopy above shook and snow fell all over my head. Innocent laughter filtered out into the dark like a dove.

I laughed. A boy with a red face and black ear muffs joined me as he walked past.

"I think they were aiming at you!"

I laughed again. "Yes they did a pretty good job!"

Some energy floated between us like a bridge, and for a moment we paused in the snow like characters in a dream. Then he walked on.

I slowed down so that I wouldn't catch up with him.

A man slid on the ice and fell flat on his back. Wine spilled on to the snow like blood.

A cheerful lesbian shouted "Happy snow day" as she walked past.

People were running across the beach hiding behind pillars and throwing snowballs. The promenade lights shone a yellow haze on the revellers, mixing with the snow like ink.

I went on to the beach and looked out at the sea. The wind was blowing snow against my face and my cheeks has lost all feeling. But I felt exhilerated. What was this dream?

I inhaled the fresh sea wind. I also inhaled the world.

What if it was like this all the time? What if people realised that other people were just other versions of themselves and were no longer afraid?

What if people actually opened their eyes and saw the magic all around them? What if every day was a happy snow day?

The snow continues to fall outside my window. The trees and rooftops are thickly spread with white. Time is on hold. Work has been cancelled.

Magic floats through the dreamscape. Once the snow disappears, and normality comes back, people will fall asleep again. Strangers will no longer talk to eachother on the street.

When I sat facing the sea, covered with snow, battered by wind, I saw an orange lantern floating up into the sky and I made a wish.

I like to think that each lantern I see represents a person breaking free from the structures imposed upon us, in this illusory reality, and becoming conscious of their true nature. Breaking free from this circus endlessly paraded before our eyes to see the truth.

But maybe they're just orange lanterns, and my thoughts are simply dreams.

Conversations with the Snow

Snow falls down like rain. The sky is grey and the earth is cold. Breath hangs like smoke.

Waking up, the usual dread turned to joy upon the realisation that snow dictated freedom.

A white blanket spread outside the the kitchen window. T ate fruit and stood beside the fridge, glowing like a christmas decoration. I leaned against the sideboard black as a crow and moaned.

J sat on her throne in the red room eminating a faintly luminous liquid, talking in Hebrew. She had drawn the Judgement card, which hung upside down beside her long yellow nails. The children had hung themselves because I hadn't done the tracking. She sentenced me to a life of pitch black 6am starts in miserable commuter trains crammed full of dead people.

I screamed and it all became distorted. I tried to escape, but I wasn't sure how.

D and I sat in a quaint pub beside an orange fire. We drank beer and ate bangers and mash. The calming heat of the woodwork was an emination. It acted as a buffer to the degradation of the cold platform with the hundreds of people and the ceaseless 'delayed' sign on the overhead.

There was a wine glass hanging suspended on the age of the table.

"Why don't you knock it off?" she asked him.

"But do most people not just accept?"

"Somehow I ended volunteering in Mexico. The city was bright and shimmering like a dream"

"But what about the children?" A peal of laughter echoed through the courtyard.

"Sanity will tell you that it is mad to give up, but what if sanity is actually mad? What then?"

"What are you running away from?" asks N, from an underwater cavern.

"Pitch black six am starts on souless commuter trains full of the faces of the dead, floating in a nightmare", thundered a loud voice from the sky. We weren't sure if it was God, because we couldn't see past the beard. I hear a sound float under the snow but I block it out. I waken up and remember that it's all just a dream.

"The misery comes from thinking that you are a person", says the Zen guru from underneath the flowerbed.

"But in my dream if I want to change scene I just blink."

"So why not blink?"

Because I can't see! I guess if all else fails and I'm trapped in that house again, with those people, I can just volunteer.

J asks to see my tracking, and my reports, and my marking, and the pot of gold, and the outstanding juice. I respond by beating myself to death with a heavy text book as the children cheer me on.

Then I remember it's all just a dream and blink.

And it disappears.

I'm lying in the middle of the desert, beside a fire, looking up at the stars.

The commuter train spontaneously combusts in to nothing.