Tales From The Town #203: Thirteen Moments In May

1. Bank Holiday

It was so busy it was like an anxiety attack. Mums and dads, kids in packs, dogs having snacks, babies causing traffic jams in their two seater prams, on May Day, at the beach and in the park and all the way through the town.

The only way to escape was to swim out to sea and dream of quiet, some isolated bay without even mermaids to bother you.

2. Antoine

Antoine hovers in the record shop, a weird certainty that he bought this exact same CD the last time he was here, last year, every year.

He buys it again, just in case he’s wrong.

3. Ethel

Ethel knows that lying is wrong. But she also knows that it’s surprisingly fun.

4. Claire

Claire looked at her feet. Black leather shoes with a silver buckle, ice cream melting off the toes and onto the lush red carpet in the hallway. In time, this memory would become divorced from the moment, exist purely as an image so vivid her mind would return to it time after time for years. Red, white, black, as pure and lurid as the detail in some Baroque scene.

But right now all she could do was stand as still as can be, hold in her tears, and try not to howl out her fury and despair into the empty cone she still held in her hand.

5. Selene

Selene dreams
of spaceships
and satellites

of loneliness
and sadness
in endless utopian fields.

Disconnected memories
of the moon
and the stars

Little postcards
from the distant past.

6. Lucy

The sun shone. The wind blew. Occasional spring showers throughout the day. It was the perfect weather to stand at the end of the pier and brood.

7. The Cat

The cat stretched out in the sun, yawned, rolled over, and stretched some more.

8. Lucas

Lucas smiled at everyone that went past his mirror. He didn’t have to, but he did.

When you were a ghost, you could be as disconcerting as you pleased.

9. Eleonora

On the way home from work there was straw all across the road, and when the cars drove past it swirled and moved like waves leaving ripples in the sand. An image so oddly beautiful it seemed at odds with the mundanity of the rest of her day.

10. Daniel

Daniel was doing handstands and ignoring the news that he was no longer a boy, because of course he was a boy. He knew.

11. Tina

Upstairs in her room
Tina plans to write
the tiniest
poem
ever

12. Agnes

Her presents were mostly things she didn’t really like and already had. Her cake was a chocolate caterpillar, out of date and stale, so crumbly it was almost impossible to slice. There was no wine.

But no one argued, and no one cried, and only a couple of things got spilled all over the floor, so she counted it as one of the more successful birthdays of her entire life.

13. Bank Holiday

It was so busy it was like an anxiety attack. Mermen and mermums, merkids in their merpacks, merdogs having mersnacks, merbabies causing traffic jams in their two seater merprams, on Mer Day, out at sea and under the waves and all the way across the entire ocean.

The only way to escape was to swim in to shore and dream of quiet, some isolated cove without even humans to bother you.

__________

Notes:

1. Written in March, April and May 2025
2. Except for a bit that was written in April 2023

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Tales from The Town #143: May Days

Unexpected sunshine after several months of rain. Bird song and insect buzz. Ice cream van jingle burrowing deep within your brain. If you look closely you can see the grass growing beneath your feet almost in real time.

New month, new life. The perfect time to reappear.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on May 1st, 2024
2. Apologies, also, for prolonged absences.

__________

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

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Essex, England, May 2003

On May 3rd, 2003, I got a digital camera as a present from my parents. I was 24, living at home, and in the middle of doing my degree. We had two cats, and were soon to get a third.

Like everyone else with their first digital camera, I immediately spent the next month taking pictures of all the incredibly mundane things you were never really allowed to take pictures of before. Bookshelves and bathrooms and carpets and curtains. Desktops, cupboards, TV screens. Cats. So many cats.

Then I forgot all about ever taking them, and never looked at any of them again until now.

So here are nearly a thousand pictures of Essex, England, in May 2003. Almost all of them are extremely boring. A significant proportion of them are either of myself or my cats. 99% of them are in 640*480 format. 23% of them are extremely blurry.

Essex, England, May 2003

3rd May, 2003
5th May, 2003
7th May, 2003
8th May, 2003 (afternoon)
8th May, 2003 (evening)
9th May, 2003
10th May, 2003
11th May, 2003
14th May, 2003
15th May, 2003 (afternoon)
15th May, 2003 (evening)
16th May, 2003 (afternoon)
16th May, 2003 (evening)
17th May, 2003 (afternoon)
17th May, 2003 (evening)
18th May, 2003
19th May, 2003
24th May, 2003
25th May, 2003
26th May, 2003
27th May, 2003
28th May, 2003
30th May, 2003

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Notes:

1. I took these photos in May 2003
2. And made this website on March 12th and 13th, 2021
3. And I was going to write an essay explicating all the things I like about these pictures
4. But then I did not
5. Because it’s better just to look
6. At the past
7. Captured here in aspic
8. For the rest of known time

__________

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If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!