Dreaming

         There I am living in a beautiful old windmill, creamy white textured walls. I don't remember any other colour, furnishing. Everything seems certain and solid. But then cracks start to show and one warm summer day blisters appear on the inside walls, like when damp escapes through the ceiling of an upstairs room, only it's on the walls. The windmill , I realise, is made of cheese, and the upper chambers are splitting like mozzarella, cracking like feta, blistering like a grilled goats cheese. I try to rescue something from the damaged upper rooms, desperate to hold on, but to what I'm not sure: mementos of a past that give me definition, photos, keepsakes, something that proves who I am, who I have been, but the stairs slew sideways and the expedition becomes as much about clawing the walls as it is about climbing the stairs. It is difficult to find anything in the crumbling rubble. I give up and resign my past to the rennet damp and stay down below. It is time to let go, time to move on. But I don't seem to be able to let go on my own.
         Some inexorable force  pulls me backwards through the walls as I claw at the insubstantial structure of my past, trying to hold on but I get nothing but crumbling  feta beneath my nails to show for my efforts. And then it is gone, a windmill life wiped from existence, like a theatre scene-change, the whole reality shifts into something that only existed in my mind. I am left standing in an alpine meadow bereft, waiting for Julie Andrews to sing the glory of creation into my soul.
         Here she comes. There is hope for a new beginning then: a rainbows  end beyond what I had believed were the confines of stability, reality. I march and run with her and twirl my Austrian skirts, climbing onto  puffs of marshmallow pink and white cloud which merge into spiral stairs, corkscrewing up though blue sky to a rose dripping gothic archway and  a Sissinghurst in the sky.  This seems more real than the windmill ever was,  now it is in front of me, and yet I know it to be impossible.
        Light flickers and the reality changes, images clicking out of time like an old fashioned film reel, home movies projected onto wood chip walls.  I find myself in tight stays and a stiff gown, sitting at a long polished refectory table, surrounded by people in Georgian wigs, a promenade of carnival masks,powdered faces and painted lips. Everyone is turning this way and that, noticing no one but waiting to be noticed; looking around the room to see who is looking back at them, where to curry favour. The air is laced with tension, expectation and rivalry. Servants bustle about puffed up with their own importance. Being busy and achieving nothing . There is no conversation and yet there is noise, a clash of unspoken slights and jealousies and judgements.
          A bugle sounds and one of the servants in a livery of green needlepoint waistcoat with gold buttons and matching trews, claps his hands. A stone wall is drawn apart like curtains the stones falling into folds revealing a grand terrace surrounded by roman balustrading. We gather at the opening, an eye onto another kingdom, and watch as great ostrich plumes in cream,red and gold explode in the sky like fireworks then fly away to the horizon. I hear a lone piper and realise there is a little girl tugging at my stiff skirts, my hand, wide eyed raggle-taggle haired, muddy faced. She is the image of myself as a mud pie making Tom-girl about two years old. She is unconcerned with etiquette and social proprieties. I watch her free spirited dance  and try to breath only feeling  the constraint of my stays, the stiff formality of fabric  supported by the disapproving glances from the gathered crowd, the tuts, the whispers as the child laughed and twirled and shone. The distaste emanating from the crowd spreads like an ink stain, like mustard gas, threatening to occlude my view of her  happiness and choke her freedom and yet she dances still.
      She dances to the piper, skipping and twirling, closer, closer to the edge of danger or safety, closer to the broken edges of polite order. The notes the piper plays are released as soap bubbles floating into the air, rising a note at a time, calling to my heart, hypnotic, like the pied pipers song. I call her too me, my younger self and she tugs at my hand, wanting to share her wonder.  I am holding the little girl's hand in mine protectively, not wanting her to be hurt, not wanting her to fall. I am torn between wanting to keep her safe and wanting to relish her spirit, her joy. The kernel of an idea cracks open in my heart and takes root, sending out shoots and leaves, it flourishes . I  don't want to let her go. I want to go with her, be her.
     I tear my cloth prison in two, stepping out of its stiff form. It remains standing like a discarded bean pod. I have been contained but now I am free. I swing the child high, celebrating our oneness then watch the soap bubble notes of the piper come within touching distance. We step inside a bubble and sheathed in its gossamer film, float from solid ground, from imposed constraints, to freedom, an uncertainty laced with joy and  happiness.

The Wisdom of Fish

 A pair of fools we were, I a fish in a pond, you a bird in the reeds.

The things in between whispered of love and treachery , desire and indifference.  Love. It was never going to work, me sleeping with the fish and you sleeping with your head under your own wing. 

      Your eye was warped in to kindliness by the surface tension of the pond and beyond your speckled breast I now see evil intention sleeping in your heart. After all that careful attention; a life time of longing. I had spent my time as fry craving your love, wishing to swim in the currents of air between us, but now, finally I have learned to swim away.

      I see the shadow of a skeletal fish in your eye so I swim where it is safer, here among the dense reed stalks, hidden in a weave of shadow. The things in between still whisper, but they whisper harmless gossip, not death and destruction.

      I will wait for a sustainable love, I have a will: lets call it patience. And you have it in spades also. But I will not be the victim of your crime; I am wise to your attention now. 

      But do not fret, there are plenty more fish in the sea.

Little Mouse (pt 2)

       She had closed her eyes only for a moment it seemed, watching the swirls of colour dance under her eyelids.  She had not meant to give in to the weight of sleep. A banging at her door had startled her from mellow honeyed dreams filled with saffron sights and the darkened room seemed particularly dreary after it. Her tea stood cold at the side of the bed, a tannin patchwork suspended on the surface. The banging came again and she carefully lowered her legs to the floor, shuffling her feet into sheepskin mules. Again, the urgent wrapping.

       “I’m coming, I’m coming” Some people were always in such a hurry. There was no time to be old.  

        It was unusual for her to get a caller after dark but she guessed it could be Martha wanting to ask her to babysit at the drop of a hat.  If she shook a leg she could be over there in what, ten minutes, fifteen maybe? She could do with the extra cash towards a new boiler. She peeped through the spy hole at the centre of the door, a useless precaution these days without her glasses. The lamp opposite shot out distress flares arcing across the street, orange across her retina, and she blinked them away trying hard to focus. Looking for Martha’s face. Where were her glasses?

       She was dreaming still. It must be a dream. She had imagined him coming to her so many times over the years. They had been getting stronger of late, she had feared she was loosing her marbles. Sometimes his appearance in her dreams seemed more real than the people on the street, memories of youth, authorities they were purely fantastical; dancing monkey gods carrying him to her on a litter through the sky; her prince, blue skinned riding a stately elephant hung about with golden marigold garlands. Always he was coming, but never arriving. It was a cruel trick. 

      ‘Get a grip old girl’ she would tell herself sternly, “now is not the time for girlish fantasies.” 

       And yet, there he was, her husband. This distorted, convex big-headed image could not be a fantasy. She clawed at the door, the yale, desperate to fling wide the truth of this dream. She could barely remove the safety chain for the tremors in her hand. And then there they were, face to face at last, nothing between them. There was a shadow of doubt, a shadow of lost years written in the lines of his face but as their eyes met it was puffed out, extinguished.

      She did not battle against the encroaching sea of emotion but let the tears of joy roll down her creased cheeks as they fell into each others embrace. The ache of doubt and years apart melting away like writing in the sand.  She buried her head in the crook of his neck imprinting her body to his, inhaling his scent, the same rose and patchouli, the forbidden fruits of eden she had longed for all these years and never been able to forget. His voice cracked as he spoke to her and the hopes he’d held fast all these years burst their defences.

     “I have found you at last Little Mouse.” She raised her head and they kissed just as they had as young lovers, consumed by each other, oblivious of anything beyond the confines of their own embrace.

    “We started a symphony between us once but it has followed a tortured path my Little Mouse.  How about we write a simple ballad together?” She laughed through her joy and looked on him with love, taking his hand and drawing him into her world.

Little Mouse

        Maria sat down in her wing chair in the light from the window repositioning the compress on her elevated ankle tutting at her own carelessness. She had lit a stick of incense and  as she sat back she breathed deeply, letting the musk and tuberose erase her frustration. The Diwali candle with its mustique scented oil flickered in an orb of gold on the mantle. With her head tilted back into the warm afternoon sun she closed her eyes and was seventeen again.
They had met in Cochin  in the bloom of their youth as the Diwali lights flickered in their pools of oil on every hearth and windowsill, rich and lowly alike, and fireworks sparkled in the sky with swirls of colour and glitter and her world had suddenly been complete. The air smelled of cordite, of saffron and ghee and monkey gods danced from the shadows. She was new to India, new to everywhere, newly escaped from the cardboard life of home to the vibrant sensuality of the East. She was high on her own freedom and a sense of invincibility. At last she began to understand that she could be the pearl in her own oyster.
He had been standing with a crowd of young men, laughing, joking together, familiarity pulsing in the air between them. The men were throwing firecrackers at each others feet, and they revelled in exuberance as the sparks cracked on the bitumen and they escaped the bite of the flash jumping into the air. These were not like the men she had known back home; all mouth and trouser with only echoes and silence between them. These men knew each other to the bone. If there were secrets, grudges, they did not stand between them, a ghost in the gathering to be released by beer. There was openness here; the laughter was a bond not a jibe at the others' expense.
        Her eyes met his in laughter as she looked on at their fun not knowing how to join the dance, then a chance rocket thrown from somewhere in the darkness flared into fate, speeding towards him, and she let out a sudden squeak of fright. He kicked it away unharmed and it skittered away down an alley, it's path momentarily lighting a series of images, abandoned boxes, a bicycle propped against the wall, sleeping dogs, a bundle of newspapers, an old cart: a penny peep-show of images, there one second gone the next.  By the time she looked back he was crossing the street, his arms reaching for her in concern.
        "Eh! Little mouse, are you ok?"
        "It just startled me. No harm done"
        "You need a drink, something for the shock." It was not a question. This was a pick up line,surely. She had been disappointed at the prescriptive nature of it: pick up naive tourist, get her drunk: so predictable.The smile began to slink away from her face,  closely followed by his, and she was about to say sorry, that she wasn't much of a drinker when he spoke again, with hope and a pipkin of something else, pleading, desire, she couldn't tell, "I know the best place for fresh Lassi." So he was different. She warmed again, looking at his open face.
       "Come. We go. You will come with me little mouse?" He seemed uncertain, a little bashful and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to reassure him.
       "Of course, thank you."
        He guided her gently by the elbow and pointed further down the street. They sat together on a rickety wooden bench, smoothed by trade not industry, and he ordered for them both. When it came the lassi was cool and sweet and creamy, flavoured with the familiar and unfamiliar; rose and guava. They sipped slowly and breathed in the scent of night, absorbing the moment. As she remembered this first shared moment, the frisson of heat between them, she could feel the kindling igniting in her heart again. She  remembered what it had been like to be vital, impetuous, fortified by youth. She had been ready for adventure, unquestioningly open.
        Entranced by the amber light in his eyes she had sold her soul to the great elephant god, Ganesh, in exchange for a taste of love. After the lassi glasses were drained and the wallah dozed behind his counter they left coins on the table and walked away into deep suede shadows between flickering lights, through a maze of streets, sinking further and further into each other's spell. As the noise of the festivities dwindled the sound of their desire expanded to fill the silence. It was a white noise that expunged all else as first their eyes met, then their lips, soft and expectant.
        They had walked with more purpose then, driven on by a deep yearning to know the pleasure of each other. A light shone through the tunnel ahead and he had pulled her through an old stone archway to his rooms.  There was no judgement, no awkwardness, no discussion, just a hunger to close the gaps between them. His window was lit by a lamp from beneath giving the room a honey glow and he was revealed in a golden glory. They lit an emergency flair on their youthful love stripping their clothes and dropping them to the floor.mShe bathed in the warmth of desire in his eyes, admired his taught, lithe frame. He lit the coals at the core of her with his first tentative strokes with promises of a unique symphony about to be written between them. His skin was as smooth as dusted milk truffles and she tasted every mouthful of him. He had been the first to see her, to complete her. He gave the gift of love, the promise of a different kind of life, of so much more than she had ever known.
        For a month they soaked in each other, consumed one another. Had she been a finger puppet to his majesty, a mouse to his cat? She didn't think so. The scales were even. But then she had returned home. He said he would follow but weeks turned to months and cobwebs dusted on her dreams. Her hopes were disappointed: mutton dressed as sheep, yet still she treasured the memory of their time. Through him she had known love and for the first time believed she was worthy of being loved.
       She opened her eyes to the haze of incense and slowly lifted her foot down from the stool letting the cool compress fall away from her swollen ankle and went to make a cup of earl grey. There used to be some consolation in these daydreams but the tables had turned recently. A weight of disappointed hopes hung about her now. She was not one to mope though; she knew she had a lot to be thankful for. She smiled a salute to the memory and blew out the Diwali wick then shuffled down the Indian carpet runner to her bedroom knowing she would feel better after forty winks.

Polar Hunter

          Arctic winter is as beautiful as it is cruel.Ice hangs in the air cold enough to burn your lungs while the aurora dances a frivolous can-can high above and far into the east, shaking dust motes from her skirts. It is a landscape of ghostly shadows and smoke, of cobalt depths and inky puddles under a sapphire sky of midnight sunlight. Gone are the aquamarine and turquoise gems of Summer's sunlit waters and glistening diamond ice.
        A polar bear shifts in his den of ice. Something disturbed him. Was it the grumbling ice sheets, rubbing each other up the wrong way like bickering siblings, or was it the rumbling growl of his intestine complaining of emptiness?  The thought revealed to his conscious mind demands an answer and he is unable to ignore his desire for food or his curiosity any longer. His boot black nose twitches from side to side hoping for some hint of food in the crystalline air as he looks at the world anew. This is the night his mother said would come, the one that would feel like forever. Light would return when the corkscrew turned upon the earth, it was all part of nature's waltz. He should be deep in slumber, barely conscious of the cold but it is not so warm without the shared pelts of his mother and his brother.  This is his first winter alone, and just as was told in the stories of old it would be long and deep with darkness and discontent.
        His world, in its deeper shades of blue appears unsettled under the flirtatious peacock-sky, flaunting all the colour in her petticoat tails at the moon. The polar bear spreads the broad pads of his four paws flat against the earth to stop its dizzying tilt and heaves his body from slumber. Ice crystals swirl and eddy across the ice flats as he raises his nose to sniff the air for some hint of warmth, of life or death. He wonders half dazed across the ice, his thick pelt buffeting in the gusty winds, eyes squinting into the blue.
       There. Something on the air. He pads forward, to the left, right, and back to centre, pinpointing the direction he must go. He walks on for a few minutes, feeling the cold seeping through his paws, loath to leave the warmth of the den too long, and sniffs again. The smell is stronger, he is sure of it. Or is it desperation he is smelling? Eat or retreat. A wrong decision could be the death of him. He moves on and moments later feels a patch of ice give under his weight. He noses at the crust, inhaling the smell of warm seal cocooned within, thence wring on to his hind quarters he dashes down his front paws on the ice, instinct overriding everything. Over and over he repeats his attack on the snow, smashing down, feeling the crust of ice cracking, the smell of seal getting stronger. Adrenalin floods his muscles. This was a fight for food,a fight for survival. His head spins with anticipation and his mouth floods with saliva as the roof of the den caves in and he scoops at the warmth of the hollowed spaces. He falls forward into the den with his head and shoulders searching for the meaty morsel just in time to see the tail of a harp seal slip under the inky glass of icy water.
        As the adrenalin wanes to exhaustion he gazes at his reflection disturbed only by a stream of lazy bubbles rising to the surface of the water hole mocking his hungry reflection. He turnes on his heal following his own scent trail back to the den. The growl comes again. This time he knows it for what it is, the demanding echo of his cavernous stomach. He knows he must ignore: to go on hunting in this cold is a gamble he cannot take. Head down against the wind he walks away from disappointed exertion and back to warmth and a chance at Spring's rich pickings. For now he will bide his time in his ice hotel.

Come Hell and High Water

A percussion of rain beats its constant drum on a flat roof, an occasional crescendo gusts in the wind. The hollow kettle drum sounds as the hopper fills. A gentle melody of drips and trickles forming the tune beneath. Where is he, the Sorcerer's apprentice? Did he go and leave the taps running. Someone call the Master before we are all drowned. The cows are being washed down stream, the mice are drowned in their burrows and the high ground is no longer moral but overcrowded with creatures standing check by jowl, shivering, crowded together for warmth.  The gutters bubble and gasp on the road like drowning men, spewing forth the water that they are forced to swallow. Rivulets run ever hopeful to the next grating only to find that there is no room at the Inn. The fields sit quietly by, filling up beneath their stubble of winter wear ready to suck the boots from unsuspecting feet. The grassland remains green but beneath the disguise of early growth lies a saturated sponge ready to ooze up under the weight of passers by, a ne puddle birthed for every step. The birds have all gone. They will not risk the penetrating cold of wet feathers and  instead hunker down in the shelter of dense hedges, hold their beaks wrapped in the disguise of their wings, collars up, backs turned to the cold and damp.
And in to this I must go, because a dog is for life not just for Christmas.