They sit in the beer garden that afternoon for the first time this year, the sun finally strong enough to warn the metal chairs. Here, protected from the spring wind, you could almost imagine another city - one where drinking refreshments outside did not require perfect conditions or immense fortitude. It would be better to be in such a country, he felt. Conversations would be easier with more sunshine. Topics would hold more interest, less banality. It wasn't true of course - humans can find hate and anger, boredom and pettiness anywhere regardless of the weather. But the thought made him feel better for a moment as he sipped his beer and tried to imagine being somewhere else. Palm trees, he decided, would definitely help. He was just imagining gently swaying fronds above when her voice cut though sharply. He opened his eyes quickly, disoriented, to find her staring at him expectantly. Another opportunity gone, another grain in the hourglass of trying to understand each other ir
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At one end, the refurbished rail station - bright and glinting in the sun; tourists milling through its recovered arches. At the other end - the canal, choked with litter, hooded youths slumped on what is left of the park benches optimistically placed by the council. In between, an ebb and flow of two worlds. The bookies replaced by a craft and tea shop. A trendy moustachioed barber where the cash and carry used to be. But in the other direction too - smokers outside the old pub, hunched against the cold. A broken window, a sheet of newspaper tumbling across the pavement. Yet the tide of gentrification is encroaching gradually but unerringly, swallowing everything in the frothy foam of an overpriced flat-white.
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I can see nothing at first to make them fly. It isn't me that they sense - but as I pass closer I see movement in the scrub - a barely perceptible shimmering. I feel my heart quicken despite my disinterest. Just walk, I tell myself, just walk. But I slow as I pass, and I can't quite help the quick glance over - just enough to see - almost - the flick of bright fabric - the jar of something that shouldn't be there. It takes a moment to centre, to coagulate, but when it does I stop suddenly with shock.
Where is my bird girl? She came and went.
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I run on the marsh. The bleak expanse of brush and sky. My life comes to me - my family appearing suddenly as birds, when I am spent and least expect it. My mother, brown blackbird, sharp eyes. My grandmother a magpie high in the branches chattering disapproval and excitement. My father, the kingfisher, darting through the barge sails in the shipyard, never settling.