Source: Movement of Whale by SevenDoors.
Whale – Part I
Whale burps noisily along, patter of footsteps and the stink of his brain, unhappy alliance…
…Take me down to the underground…
An old song, memory’s reject, the underground, wisp of bounce, uncoiled spring crawls up leg, welcome thought, welcome thought, freshening of the grey.
Slide in an’ out, hedge-baked souls, a dark plethora, a fixed movement to every step, first this way and then that, as if in a dream predicted and the whole lot rearranging forms, human mud through which he must glide. Dance, dance and through. The mud must not stick, the soul a-sheen working its way through, shining soul a-bounce with the glow of otherness.
To the underground where none but the living be!
Now Whale was fresh with the bargy see? Had spent a month out at sea, so to speak, a clearing of the waves, and when all had settled a zeroing in, the streets parted afore, every bric-a-brac knick knack flotsam and jetsam form motionless in his sights, enough to shift, he might have been a gymnast, off the floor, but you wouldn’t know it, looking at him now coming towards, another shape shadow early evening glowed, stop a minute though.
Stop here and watch and there’s something strange, in the slow glitter of his step, a coordination of all from top to toe, if you could see his eyes, you’d know. But you can’t with that hood up and head down, it’s a wonder he can see at all and what’s he looking at anyway? Picking his way along the path, avoiding the cracks, what?
The air’s a warm mull, a slow ablution. If you’re the air you can be inside out. But you’re out and he’s in and as he passes you now like the warm drag of a smoke, there’s a whoosh through your lungs and a heady feeling that must be just the time of day, move on, the clock has spoken, he’s gone and up there on the bright screen above the square your attention caught, the colors and the clock, get along, get along, home, home, the fires of the warm screen bray.
What’s home for Whale? Well where he’s going in the mulled warm air, wine to his cosy heart, the future’s a drink that makes the present sweet, hoe and hoe, step by step.
Source: Baracuda, Lemon, Whale by Paul R. Buckle.
