fabergemonkey

recurring

The pavement is cold and hard beneath me, as I walk. Darkness pervades the air, a gloom-touched dusk through which I walk. It is silent, all of it, just the sounds of my footsteps, the wind over tumbling house and tree and lamp post.

This world is grey. It has a brooding emptiness, rows of houses lining the countless empty streets. They are dark, soulless, as if abandoned throughout time and place. No light shines here, the lamps are cold and lifeless, the windows of the houses lost to the memory of lighter times.

I walk on, my hands like fists, deep in my jacket, hunched against the cold probing wind. I press on.

I do not know these streets, with the close packed buildings, so muted and broken in their purpose. I do not know them, but I walk them with a familiarity, with an hurried ease that comes from countless journeys along this path.

I do not know where I came from, or where I go to.

I walk on, the wind tugging and pulling at me, the silence heavy about me, countless windows my only witnesses. I turn a corner, and then another, my feet constant of pace, the air darker and more oppressive the more I walk. I am close, I know it in my bones, in the tempo of my stride.

And then I am standing, in the middle of the road. A noise, a feeling, like the howling of great beasts, the agony of torn earth, a soundless shriek that echoes through me, that sharpens the silence. My heart thunders, a savage noise in my chest, my mouth dry, my breath tight and sudden. Adrenalin flows through me, my blood pounding and I set off once again, hurried and urgent.

Street after street pass by, the houses eerily similar, empty in the emptiness of the dusk. I am almost running, the darkness, the wind whispering to me, a silent laughter beneath the edge of my thoughts. I run, flying with the fear, the streets a blur beneath me, the echoes of a dark laughter in the harshness of my breath, in the thump of my heart, in the slap of my feet on concrete. I am racing now, driven beyond reason, running and running and running. The world is a blur, tears and darkness lending threat to every shadow, a tumbling cloud of fear and threat driving me onwards, trusting to the memory of my feet.

There, a light, a solitary faintness in the window of one house, a light that stirs and beckons. I crash through the door, shutting it hurriedly, my breath and my blood synchronous in their thunder. I lean against the door for a long moment, the threat beyond gathering, swirling and patient, sending tendrils of fear into me.

I walk down the hall, looselimbed with a sudden fatigue, weakness blurring my eyes. My father stands there, in the kitchen, simply looking at me. He is an old man, and a young man, and everything in between, the memory of a young boy in the shape of his face. He stares at me, uncomprehending, a flicker of nothingness crossing his face. He stands, a silent, still counterpoint to my loose exhaustion. He turns, and then is gone, the sound of the bolts to the door he went through final and damning.

I stand, in the middle of a kitchen that is both my own and unrecognisable, in a house I have never lived in but whose shape and texture I know in my bones.

Long moments, alone in a faded light as the shadows gather outside. Standing there, bereft, alone.

The front door shudders. I wheel and race to it, reaching it as it crashes and shakes. I slam into it, holding it in place, pain blossoming along my shoulder. The door shakes and trembles, creaking under the impact. I brace myself, fear tight and coiled inside me, tears unbidden in my eyes. The door crashes, its cry violent and tortured, mine echoing it.

I am holding. The door crashes again, bruising me, hurting me.

I am holding. It shrieks and splinters.

I am holding.

I am holding.

by bike or by foot

For the last few months I have been thinking quite a lot about getting rid of my car and, well, not getting another one.

I never intended to buy a car, and except for a brief period when I owned a four hundred year old Mark 1 Ford Fiesta, I hadn’t done so in the several years I had been living in Bristol. I am still unsure how it happened, all I know is, one bright Sunday morning, I made the decision to go out to buy milk and the Sunday papers and came back with a car (I think I forgot the milk).

Roll forward some 7 years and 100,000 miles, and I have been thinking. Yes, I have had a lot of good experiences and the car has allowed me a lot of freedom to explore, and yes, it is useful for visiting the family. But then I look at the stark figures. How much has this car cost me over the last 7 years?

Let’s break it down as roughly as I can into the following formula:

Price of the car + Repairs + Tax + MoT + Servicing + Sundries + Petrol

Car: £10,000

Repairs: £3,500

Tax: £840

MoT: £175

Servicing: £700

Sundries: £1,500

Petrol: £13,800 (£7,200 + £6,600)

Total: £30,515

Which works out at £4,359 per annum or £363.25 per month and I know is conservative in estimation.

None of the above takes into account depreciation, so you can add another £9,000 to the total for that.

So… I am going to go car-less. It will be shank’s pony or the bike for me, for the most part.

If I need a car I can hire, plus for short journeys we have the excellent City Car Club. There are trains, coachs and buses. Taking what I consider my current cost of running the car (for this year only), even if I catch the train to work and hire cars, etc on occasion when really needed, I still work out at roughly £1000 a year better off. Financially it starts to make sense. Add in the fact (one of the more striking points Cat (see below) brought up) that I will have to think more about journeys, about what I am purchasing and the real need for any of it, and the savings can become much greater.

There are other benefits; my carbon emissions will drop substantially, I will get out and about on the bike and on foot and I will no longer have the stress of sitting in traffic jams and snarl-ups. Yes, life will be a little less easy, but that will be part of the adventure, and the health benefits will be immense.

So, I am going to sell the roof box, the roof bars, the bike rack, the various bits and pieces… and I am going to sell the car. I am going to let go of the freedom of the car, and reacquire the freedom of being on foot and on wheels, and will hopefully be happier, healthier and slightly wealthier because of it.

My thanks to @CatChappell, a going-car-less advocate who also happens to work for the excellent @Sustrans (you can find their main website here) for masses of advice and encouragement. Thanks also to those of you (you know who you are) who have listened to my musings on this with an air of open caution and encouragement. All I can say is that I am going to have a go, we shall see how it goes from here on in…

the moocher

He is tall, perhaps 6′ to 6’2″, his height made difficult to gauge by the hunch of his shoulders. He is slim, neither slender nor heavy, his face seemingly amused by the world around him. He is not a handsome man, a nose too prominent, hair grey and a little too long, his stoop at once complimenting and at odds with his ambling gait. His is the black bomber jacket, and jeans worn but clean, the pale blue fading to white with the seasons.

We called him the Moocher.

His is a steady walk, not purposeful but knowing, not strident but calm, each tread unmeasured and unweighty. His hands slip easily into his jean pockets, as if they were born there. His lips carry a half-smile, not of amusement and not of pain.

We have seen him everywhere, in this city of ours. The Moocher, walking along, whatever the weather, whatever the time, seemingly aimless. Calls and texts would fling their way across the city, a sighting here, a sighting there. A pattern would emerge, then fall apart, theories raised and discussed, argued over, and thrown away.

And yet he mooched. Step after step, and endless tour of the city, pacing out paths and mysteries invisible to our eyes, obtuse to our minds. Summer would turn to autumn, autumn to winter, winter to spring, and still he walked, the same smile, hunched against the sun or the rain, step after relentless step.

And he faded from our minds, for a time, only to return at the next sighting, at the next gathering of suspicion and conjecture, at each utterance of awe and respect.

The Moocher.

Today I sat outside a pub, at a table by the docks of this city, watching the world go by. Around me the gentle hubbub of conversation and laughter, of introspection and duelling wits. I sat, alone, my pen a reluctant tool in my hand, letting the city wash over me, the moments of hundreds of thousands of citizens surging and flowing around me, like the slow silent depths of the sea.

And I mourned for the Moocher.

He was not a wizard, or a guardian of the city, his steps a timeless defence against ancient and unknown perils. He was not a spy, a lunatic, a benevolent god walking amongst us nor a spiritwalker, seeking the paths of his ancestors. He was none of these things, not an angel, not a demon, not a prince torn from another world to dwell here in banishment.

He was a man, walking his path, day in, day out. A man who walked the streets of Bristol so often as to become a part of it, a texture in it’s illdefined membrane. He was a man, I realised, lost to his community; a man walking the edge of a vast divide, him on one side, the world on the other. His was not a walk of discovery, or seeking, but one of resignation, the endless pacing of a man who has lost everything but himself, a man, an individual, bereft of his tribe.

I sat there this day, watching the world wheel by; wondering that the scratching of pen on paper, the tapping of the keyboard, the books and the blogs, the endless introspection and self examination; was this the pacing in my head? Like the Moocher, hunched and half-smiling, will I walk the precipice of my own divide, trying to understand, seeing but oblivious, surrounded but cut off, in the midst of yet alone?

One day, will the Moocher be me?

winter

As spring dawns, as the sun rises and the trees shake their torpor, as the clouds give way to light and the bare earth to flowers and grasses and life, I mourn winter’s passing, her demise. And yet hope still lives…

I look forward to her onset, to her remorseless grip on the world. I look forward to the crunch of snow beneath my feet, to the frozen earth supporting me against the bitter sky. Anticipation and longing beat within my heart, at her inevitable embrace, at her endless kiss, bright and cold on my lips, her breath igniting the awareness of life inside me.

Mine is the long night, the howl of wind and bite of ice. Mine is the silent morning, alone on a beach, the freezing fog my companion, my wall, my very isolation.

In the mountains a tarn sings softly, ice and snow a blanket to her slumber. The wind swirls like a thousand knives, slicing my flesh and my breath with a surgeon’s precision. Snow falls with gentleness, delicate moments on my eyelashes and my cheeks, the mana from a goddess’ immutable dreams, hail her nightmare’s get. Clouds boil with slow intent, potent with portent, with unimaginable potential.

Some days the sky has banished the billowing crones, bright and blue and endless in her gaze, eternity staring into fragile mortality. My breath steams into clouds, silent offerings fading into the light. These are the days for mountain summits,  for clifftops and clambering amongst sand dunes by the shore. Standing alone, complete in her touch.

Raging winds and savage snow, battering and vocal in their glee, are for mountain ridges, treacherous and perilous, ice-slicked and contorted with the weight of terror, with the ferocity of winter’s displeasure. These are the careful steps, the pilgrim’s way, each movement, each stride a puja for her grace. This is the balanced dance, the ownership of self; the test of will and intent against her relentless fury, each moment sacred in its duality, in its mutual rapture.

I look forward to her chilled embrace, to her bitter kiss, to breath stolen and heat poached with her every fickle touch;  to her raging wars and her brutal battles, to her silent peace and her calming touch. I look forward to colours muted, to the ceaseless white, to a world made colder, torpid and ancient.

I look forward to winter come.