Sudden sun for a whole weekend marks the unexpected end of this long unceasing winter, and by Monday morning, all that remains of this entire season’s crop of snow are puddles dotted here and there on the street and in the road. And when the children walk to school, one by one, beneath the gleeful stamping of their boots, they too will soon be gone.
__________
Notes:
1. Written between June 9th and June 15th, 2021
__________
On his desktop a spaceship. In the spaceship a man. And against a backdrop of stars, formed from dust on an old black t-shirt pinned to his wall, this spaceship moves slowly through space, one photograph at a time, taken painstakingly over hours, days, weeks of his life, waiting there on his camera to be assembled into motion.
Animation was as slow as David’s life. Played back, weeks reduced to seconds, it gave the impression of motion. But in fact there was no movement at all.
___________
Notes:
1. Written in May 2020
2. Almost a year before I actually started stop motioning
3. Unstoppably
“Shoelaces are so stupid,” Claire said.
“What’s wrong with shoelaces?” Ethel asked. “They’re better than velcro.”
“Hey,” Tina said, as she velcro’d her shoes shut. “What’s wrong with velcro?”
“Velcro comes from space,” Daniel said. “It’s made by aliens!”
“No it’s not,” Claire said. “Anyway, velcro’s just as stupid as shoelaces. You don’t get socklaces, do you? You don’t have to velcro your leggings up? They’re rubbish! Why don’t they just make boots that fit your feet?”
There was not a single person alive who could have adequately answered her question. Nor was there anyone who dared try.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on June 24th, 2021
__________
The first time Yulia saw the door was on her walk to work one morning, in the middle of the old Roman wall that ran through the centre of the town. It had never been there before. But there it was, locked and closed and as solid and real as the wall itself. She couldn’t stop thinking about it all day, this out of place door in the middle of that wall. When she came home that evening, it was gone.
The second time she saw it, it was down near the abandoned pub, in the wall circling the beer garden. A different wall, but the same door. It was unmistakeable. She was on the bus this time, and caught only a glimpse of it, but she was sure it was open now, not fully, but slightly ajar at least, a shaft of light shining though the gap and illuminating the pavement with an ethereal glow.
Then the bus rattled on towards its destination, and all Yulia was left with was the memory of it on her retinas, a patch of shimmering blue superimposed over the dismal and the dull of the town in winter.
The third time the door was on the other side of the street, opposite the shop, in the ruins of the old gallery, directly in her line of sight for the whole of the day. It was wide open, and Yulia could see through to what lay beyond. And what she was a world of wonders, a shifting infinity of possibilities, each one more enticing than the last, more beautiful than any heaven.
Only the queue of her customers, which stretched twice round the shop and back down the street, kept her from getting up from her chair and crossing the street and stepping through that door and never coming back.
Yulia knew it was all a dream, but that hardly mattered. She’d seen it now. Seen through and beyond to something else, something other than this. All she had to do was was wait. Wait for the door to return, for her to take her chance. There were other worlds than these.
__________
Notes:
1. Written between June 7th and June 14th, 2021
2. The title is taken from an HG Wells short story
3. And the last line is taken from The Gunslinger by Stephen King
4. But the bits in between are my own
A Winter’s Day
“It’s cold,” said Tina.
“It’s really cold,” said Claire.
“It’s too cold,” said Ethel.
Daniel’s teeth chattered and his face went blue.
“I told you all it wasn’t the weather for ice cream,” Agnes said with a sigh, as she paid the ice cream van driver and ushered the children back inside.
A Winter’s Night
Sixteen hours of dark, and all of it silent. Softly floating snow making rainbows as it falls, the colour of moonlight, the colour of streetlights, the colour of headlights, the colour of fairy lights put up for Christmas and never taken down.
Three months later and they still don’t look out of place. Winter deadens time like snow swallows sound. Purgatorial beauty.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on June 11th, 2021
2. A sequel to Tales From The Town #15: Summer