Coursing through the streets on my flat-tired bike and I'm not avoiding cars, they're avoiding me. I'm not turning corners, they're turning me. My legs are pumping and I can't even feel them, I can only feel the wind in my hair, the grit in my teeth. The midge in my eye.
I'm faster than lightning and I know it, I'm not racing the clock, I'm racing the rain, I'm racing buildings, I'm racing the air. I'm racing my own clothes, and I'm almost winning, I'm almost there, lactic acid bubbling over my knees and undone laces, legs pumping like pistons in the fiery engine of a machine made of girl and bike, bike and girl, hands fusing to the handlebars, hair fusing with the air.
Then I got hit by a tram,
In my mind's eye but I was too fast for it, too fast for blood and pain and broken bones,
too fast for dying.
(Can you get pulled over for drunk cycling?)
I am going to write a story of some variety, long or short, fictitious or factual, every single day for a year. Wish me luck.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Surprise!
When I was little, my father spent some time working in Paris. When he'd come home, he'd always bring us back gifts. "I've got a surprise for you," he'd say. As infants, we learn words through use and context. Thus, in my head, I equated the word "surprise" with a physical gift.
One day I asked him what a Jack-in-the-Box was. He told me it was a "little man who jumps out of a box and gives everyone a surprise".
So I found a box, dragged it into the living room, climbed inside jumped out again to give everyone a surprise.
No one was very surprised in the traditional sense. But I had filled the box with my teddy bears, and I ran around giving one to everyone in the room - what a nice "surprise"!
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Like Ships in the Night
I built a paper boat today. A sky blue catamaran. I used two and a half pieces of paper and sellotape. I drew a skull and crossbones on the sail.
You're building one too. It's a competition. When night falls, we're going to take them to our secret spot and float them down the river.
I think mine will win.
I spent an hour on it.
(I wanted you to be impressed)
We'll drop them on the dark, rushing river and they'll probably collapse before they even reach the bridge, and we'll laugh, and they'll be gone. An afternoon of craftsmanship down the drain, sodden shipwrecks washing up somewhere in the morning, puzzling ducks. Will I be sad, for my little boat? I might be. I think I will be. The sellotape is sloppy, but the paper is such a nice shade of blue! I was happy making it. I'll be happy watching our boats race together, on a dark secret bank of a rushing, hushing river. I will have no regrets, though I'll be sad for our paper vessels, sloppy and fragile, transient and beautiful.
I will watch them float away with sad eyes, set like glistening opals in a golden, happy face.
We will hold hands and watch them go together.
And say goodbye when they're gone.
You're building one too. It's a competition. When night falls, we're going to take them to our secret spot and float them down the river.
I think mine will win.
I spent an hour on it.
(I wanted you to be impressed)
We'll drop them on the dark, rushing river and they'll probably collapse before they even reach the bridge, and we'll laugh, and they'll be gone. An afternoon of craftsmanship down the drain, sodden shipwrecks washing up somewhere in the morning, puzzling ducks. Will I be sad, for my little boat? I might be. I think I will be. The sellotape is sloppy, but the paper is such a nice shade of blue! I was happy making it. I'll be happy watching our boats race together, on a dark secret bank of a rushing, hushing river. I will have no regrets, though I'll be sad for our paper vessels, sloppy and fragile, transient and beautiful.
I will watch them float away with sad eyes, set like glistening opals in a golden, happy face.
We will hold hands and watch them go together.
And say goodbye when they're gone.
Monday, 4 June 2012
The Jiaozi Maker
Somewhere in a vast Chinese city, there lies a thin street, steep and narrow, lined with restaurants and grocers and junk shops and bicycles. In the summer storms, the street floods with a rapid stream that carries noodle packets, soda cans and melon rinds like tiny boats, and shoos away stray cats and dogs, and sprays dirty water onto cyclists backs. It washes people like flotsam into the restaurants, where they dry their feet on grubby cardboard, hang umbrellas on hooks and are ushered onto tables, menus pressed into their hands.
Old Mrs Yang sits on a stool at the back of her restaurant, watching the rain tumble in heavy silver cords. A single room with four tables and seventeen chairs, white walls decorated with fading red paper cuts, delicate as lace, wilting and peeling at the edges. The shop window empty. There is no menu, no open-closed sign. Only condensation gleaming as the light dies, as the rain bleeds colour from the sky. And a sign above the door whose symbols read "Jiao zi". Dumplings. Nothing more.
Old Mrs Yang sits on her stool all day, making Chinese dumplings. Watching people pass and watching the rain fall.
Each morning she mixes minced pork, garlic, spring onions and spices in a large bowl. Then she rolls out the dough, first into long cylinders, which she slices, then rolls into flat circles. Once this is done, she spends her day folding dumplings, wizened hands covered in soft flour, repeating her deft movements over and over. Firm and delicate, all at once. Placing a round of dough onto her palm, a ball of stuffing, exactly the right size, at its centre. Folding it into a crescent, then pressing the edges into folds, three on each side. Before her on the table lie hundreds of dumplings, little half moons with crimped edges, bone-white dough dusted with chalk-white flour. And when the rain washes up its driftwood customers, sodden and hungry, she nods at them to sit and drops the dumplings into the pot of boiling water to cook.
The dumplings dance and bob, their delicious smell rising as steam to warm the cold noses of her famished guests. When they're ready, Old Mrs Yang scoops them out with a big holey metal spoon, places them on a plate and hobbles over to the table to serve them. They come with a bowl of soy sauce, chilli oil, minced garlic and a myriad of spices, and a cup of green tea. (If you ask her for a beer, she'll wander out to the shop across the street for you, even in the rain.) The dumplings are hot and delicious and always perfect. Always twelve of them. Always fresh and steaming hot.
If you ask Mrs Yang how many dumplings she makes in a day, she'll laugh and say, more than you could make in a week. How many has she made in her lifetime? How long has the she sat there, on her little wooden stool, looking out at people and rain? Folding little moons between her wise fingers like some deity, sculpting the sky.
As though she'd been there forever. As though she'd be there always.
Old Mrs Yang sits on a stool at the back of her restaurant, watching the rain tumble in heavy silver cords. A single room with four tables and seventeen chairs, white walls decorated with fading red paper cuts, delicate as lace, wilting and peeling at the edges. The shop window empty. There is no menu, no open-closed sign. Only condensation gleaming as the light dies, as the rain bleeds colour from the sky. And a sign above the door whose symbols read "Jiao zi". Dumplings. Nothing more.
Old Mrs Yang sits on her stool all day, making Chinese dumplings. Watching people pass and watching the rain fall.
Each morning she mixes minced pork, garlic, spring onions and spices in a large bowl. Then she rolls out the dough, first into long cylinders, which she slices, then rolls into flat circles. Once this is done, she spends her day folding dumplings, wizened hands covered in soft flour, repeating her deft movements over and over. Firm and delicate, all at once. Placing a round of dough onto her palm, a ball of stuffing, exactly the right size, at its centre. Folding it into a crescent, then pressing the edges into folds, three on each side. Before her on the table lie hundreds of dumplings, little half moons with crimped edges, bone-white dough dusted with chalk-white flour. And when the rain washes up its driftwood customers, sodden and hungry, she nods at them to sit and drops the dumplings into the pot of boiling water to cook.
The dumplings dance and bob, their delicious smell rising as steam to warm the cold noses of her famished guests. When they're ready, Old Mrs Yang scoops them out with a big holey metal spoon, places them on a plate and hobbles over to the table to serve them. They come with a bowl of soy sauce, chilli oil, minced garlic and a myriad of spices, and a cup of green tea. (If you ask her for a beer, she'll wander out to the shop across the street for you, even in the rain.) The dumplings are hot and delicious and always perfect. Always twelve of them. Always fresh and steaming hot.
If you ask Mrs Yang how many dumplings she makes in a day, she'll laugh and say, more than you could make in a week. How many has she made in her lifetime? How long has the she sat there, on her little wooden stool, looking out at people and rain? Folding little moons between her wise fingers like some deity, sculpting the sky.
As though she'd been there forever. As though she'd be there always.
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Le Lac de la Cassiere
The day was unbearably hot. The air hung heavy and bloated like a balloon filled with water, drops of condensation beading like sweat on its surface. Then it burst. Raindrops drenched the streets, intoxicating people with the scent of cooling asphalt. I ran through puddles to your doorstep.
Later we hurtled over still-hot motorways in your car, windows stuck shut. A capsule of heat in which we were drowning. We got to the lake and spilt out the doors in a sticky mass. The freshness of the air hit us like lake water.
Towels spread on rocks, we edged into the water. Rocks sharp on our feet and water cold around our ankles. The sun sank behind the trees. We sank up to our shoulders.
We spread ourselves out to dry by a fire we made from pine cones. The smoke rose up like incense. The sky turned pewter, bruisy clouds dancing across the horizon like wild beasts. Pine trees, black against the sky's dim glow, cut a pattern against the sky. We stared so long, so deeply, that the light through the trees looked like cliffs of silver jutting out of black rocks.
As night fell we watched lights sparkling across the lake, voices drifting across, carried by faint trains of music. Above them, bulbous grey cloud burst with lightning, sporadically lighting up the lake.
We lay on our backs staring up at the pine trees boughs until the fire went out.
Later we hurtled over still-hot motorways in your car, windows stuck shut. A capsule of heat in which we were drowning. We got to the lake and spilt out the doors in a sticky mass. The freshness of the air hit us like lake water.
Towels spread on rocks, we edged into the water. Rocks sharp on our feet and water cold around our ankles. The sun sank behind the trees. We sank up to our shoulders.
We spread ourselves out to dry by a fire we made from pine cones. The smoke rose up like incense. The sky turned pewter, bruisy clouds dancing across the horizon like wild beasts. Pine trees, black against the sky's dim glow, cut a pattern against the sky. We stared so long, so deeply, that the light through the trees looked like cliffs of silver jutting out of black rocks.
As night fell we watched lights sparkling across the lake, voices drifting across, carried by faint trains of music. Above them, bulbous grey cloud burst with lightning, sporadically lighting up the lake.
We lay on our backs staring up at the pine trees boughs until the fire went out.
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Storm in a Teacup
Belinda didn't particularly appreciate the little clouds gathering above her cup of earl grey. Nor did she enjoy the tiny waves thrashing about, splashing out of the fine bone china teacup (gold gilded pink roses) and staining her white lace blouse. The bolt of lightning that struck her upper lip left her really rather vexed indeed. But the final straw was possibly choking on a small shipwreck that had sunk to the bottom of the cup.
Friday, 1 June 2012
I miss you.
I miss you like I miss trains.
I miss you like I miss deadlines.
I miss you like I miss the things you throw me.
I miss you like I misunderstand you.
I miss you like you misogyny.
I miss you like we misanthropy.
I miss you like I Miss Haversham.
I miss you like I mistakes.
I miss you like I miss the boat.
I miss you like I miss the point.
I miss you.
I miss you like I miss deadlines.
I miss you like I miss the things you throw me.
I miss you like I misunderstand you.
I miss you like you misogyny.
I miss you like we misanthropy.
I miss you like I Miss Haversham.
I miss you like I mistakes.
I miss you like I miss the boat.
I miss you like I miss the point.
I miss you.
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