The Work of Art II: Henry

"Cop on, Henry. Don't look at me like that or I'll kick you down the stairs."

Henry is being difficult. He's old and grubby and one of his wheels doesn't really turn any more, and the wire doesn't unwind as smoothly as it should. Suction's ok, as long as your knuckles are white gripping the joint where the metal pipe meets the plastic tube. And he's much too portly to rest on a single step so you have to keep one knee pressed against him so he doesn't fall. It would serve him right if he did, the way he keeps getting stuck round corners and tripping me with his wire. 

Day two of my internship and I'm hoovering the back staircase.

The building is just covered in debris. Mostly fine sawdust and flakes of paint, but also dust and god-knows-what-else. There are three floors plus the basement. It's taking a long time, my back hurts, I'm covered in dust. And after I'm done, the front staircase awaits.

"God, Henry! Stop being a little bitch."

The plastic overalls are making me sweat.

I said it before;

Art is hard.

Stew

What makes for better writing? Feelings as fresh and raw as a newly severed finger? Thoughts scrawled out as you're thinking them? Memories imprinted on the page as you live them, like a photo onto Polaroid paper? Or that which is left to simmer, to settle? To congeal. Maybe those words we've rolled around on our tongues for months are the best ones. The grit becomes a pearl.

We all know some dishes are better the next day. Takeaway curry, for example, or Mum's lasagne. It's best to leave your tea to cool, lest it burn your mouth.

What is this, then? It is it an attempt to excuse laziness, tardiness, distractedness?
Probably.

But I've had at least enough time to think on things that I could come up with a better excuse for my literary absence than mere writer's block.

So let's just say, I didn't forget. I wasn't too lazy. I just wanted time to reflect. Time to let my thoughts develop, slowly.

Time to let the meat of a story tenderise, slowly.
Time to let it melt off the bone.

The Work of Art

Today I started the first day of my work placement at an art gallery.

Which is a euphemistic way of saying, Today I painted the walls of an abandoned bank for three hours.

It wasn't the only thing I did. I also drank coffee and explored the bank vaults in the basement. Dark and dusty with metal doors half a metre thick. Some dimly lit and full of dirty tools, some black and filled with obscure miscellanea. One well lit and filled with coffee table books. One almost empty, save for a single red glockenspiel in a pool of white light. I struck a G. The warm note flooded the vault and its closeness startled me, as an unexpected tap on the shoulder might, if you thought you were alone. I left.

The building was icy cold, and on the upper floors the rooms were white and concrete grey, ceilings populated by snaking pipes. Stepladders wandered round half-built installations. Paintings hung still. Wide windows let in white light and views of dancing tree-tops, vibrant yellow. I pushed my Nikes clumsily through the legs of a white overall. It had a hood.

Then I picked up a bucket of paint and an assortment of brushes and clattered down the back staircase till I found the bits of wall the last painter had missed. Long strips behind banisters and wide stretches of sloped ceiling. The paint smelt wonderful. And it was so white. The wall was the colour of discoloured teeth. I took pleasure in the bleaching process. You can't leave brush strokes, but you've got to blend the new white with the old white so it doesn't show. Not easy. But it's an art. A work of art. I liked the rhythm. The repetition. The sense of completion. The mindlessness. The cleansing. The catharsis. I painted until my arms ached, until my necked seized from gazing at the sloping ceiling, 'til my head span from the fumes and from the vertigo of being on the staircase but not looking at my feet.

When I'd finished the flight of stairs my hands and shoes and face and watch were flecked with tiny white dots. Like stars. And bright silver sparks flew around my peripheral vision. Like stars.

The vast and empty rooms grew dark save for the faint orange glow of street lights where once shone the golden leaves. I scrubbed my hands in icy water and peeled myself out of the overalls and wandered round dark corridors looking for someone to say goodbye to.

Then I left. Wearied from my strange, quiet work experience.
Art is hard, they say.

The Race

At the end of the race they handed me a medal. Dull heavy amulet on a yellow string. A consolation prize, for coming seven-thousand-three-hundred-and-forty-eighth.

I didn't run thirteen miles for this.


I did it for the pain.
I did it so my heart would thump against my ribs.
So my feet would hurt and blister and bleed.
So my legs would cramp.
So my throat would burn with the cold.
So my stomach would churn.
So my brain would rattle inside my skull.

I did it for the sound of twenty-four-thousand-four-hundred-and-ten feet pounding tarmac, out of time.

I did it for the relief of it all being over.
I ran so I could finish.

Happy Yingmei

In a dark wood a Chinese woman in a white night dress told me her dreams.
She dreamt of a mother hen with four babies. Working hard to find food. In the dream, each day the chicken mother lost another baby. She said she could sense the sadness, deep inside her. But the chicken mother kept on searching for food to feed the remaining chicks. She said, you should go into the countryside and find a chicken family. And follow them. And then you will learn about hard work. And sadness.

Platform 1 (Southbound)

There's something I like about a train station of an evening, when the sky is turning dark teal-blue and the lights bless the platform with warm, synthetic gold. It glows here and across the way, on the other side, where the people congregate and buzz like flies. The numbers on the clock and the train's destinations tick over in that same orange-gold, and the sky grows bluer still. Ink blue. Deep sea documentary blue. My hands are cold and the wait is long and time goes slow but there's something I like about being on the platform. And when the train finally comes, I don't want to go.

Persephone

Yes, I ate the seeds,
but only six.
Let me back.

Let me back.

I admit it, yes,
I accept my fate.
you can keep me
here all winter,
only,
let me back one day,
Oh, let me back.

I made my wintry, hellish bed,
and I'll yes, I swear I'll lie in it.
But promise me you'll let me back.
Some summer's day when the sky is blue.
When the black spire slices the sun in two.

Let me back.