lament of the reed
21-04-02, 11:13 PM
Conceived in an unhinged dream, I was a crease in the shirt that this world wears. Being ironed into new shapes, transforming through the use of different detergents, becoming more conspicuous and more hidden all the while, either deeply engraved or so shallow I was unnoticeable, perpetually moving, but always there, always a part of the fabric, no matter how insignificant, always constituting at least a single thread, without which there would be a hole.
Down the corridor of life, I flew on a music beam, echoed in the dark corners of the playground, became of the substance of winter sun, died and was born again. Miss was scribbling on the board. The chalk scraping and scratching, making dense, yet hollow chalk-on-board noises, shuffling and screeching. Sums criss-crossed in wobbly diagonal lines across the board. The dusty sun shone in shapes inside the classroom, a parallelogram, a rhombus, an isosceles triangle. You couldn’t see Miss’s face. Her voiced echoed, and was part of the dark corners, bouncing off all parts of the ceiling, like a flat detuned organ, quietening, getting louder, making turns, switching key, occasionally accentuating, rising into its climax, then resuming its original three-note riff. It was a sombre tune, of leaf-falling autumn days, when sitting next to a lonely old man, who had run out of bread to feed the swans, with the breeze blowing his overcoat, and the squelching mud leaf collages of multi-coloured leaves.
Lunchtime. The children’s distant screaming symphony, far away, like in a dream. The corridor lay widely spread, shining like a beige coloured sea, glimmering and never ending, echoing hollow school-shoe footsteps, and shuffling skirts, in the deep ocean of school music. In a collage of schoolgirls I swam the sea that glimmered and shimmered, glowed and flowed and had no breaking wave of hope.
Sleeping and dreaming, I was in the playground, which was the same colour as the sky. Running in the sky with the playground above my head, I slipped, and it rained blood. No one cared.
In the blue hue, of the blue classroom my stomach did flying acrobatics, everyone had worried faces, their eyes were vindictive and blood thirsty.
“Whose responsible for this?”
My stomach did a triple flip, and somersault, with a superb landing. In a sea of loneliness I was snared. I wanted to dissolve into the atmosphere, but she was smiling. No one ever really hated me, no one ever cared enough to. She sent us outside, to backbite about us. I could see over the desert of crumbling, dusty, musty window panels, that a pack of schoolgirls were gesticulating. What were they saying about us? They rose, and bobbed, and floated up and down like meer cats, in a perfectly harmonious wave, making suggestions to the teacher. Exited voices hummed in sonata of chirping birds. In the musty corridor immersed in sun shadow, I became a shadow in the corner.
The footsteps of angry see-through slippers down the corridor made my heart trampoline jump into my throat. She emerged like an all-engulfing black hole shadow, gleaming and steaming, trudging and plodding. She looked at me with millstone eyes, as her nostrils flared like a rhinoceros.
“Why are you out here?”
I nearly wet myself. Our voices shook in a tremulous atmospheric electric wave.
“ Em, e-e-e-e, erm, we er, er, er, uuuummm.”
“aarright”, she said, with cool calm collectiveness, and trudged off into he next corridor. The sweet wave of joy broke off onto the beige sea, and we laughed with relief. “Pheeeeeeew!” I said, “pheeew” the other said. I looked back through the window. What were they saying about us?. That day, everything died, and was resurrected the next. We never found out.
Down the corridor of life, I flew on a music beam, echoed in the dark corners of the playground, became of the substance of winter sun, died and was born again. Miss was scribbling on the board. The chalk scraping and scratching, making dense, yet hollow chalk-on-board noises, shuffling and screeching. Sums criss-crossed in wobbly diagonal lines across the board. The dusty sun shone in shapes inside the classroom, a parallelogram, a rhombus, an isosceles triangle. You couldn’t see Miss’s face. Her voiced echoed, and was part of the dark corners, bouncing off all parts of the ceiling, like a flat detuned organ, quietening, getting louder, making turns, switching key, occasionally accentuating, rising into its climax, then resuming its original three-note riff. It was a sombre tune, of leaf-falling autumn days, when sitting next to a lonely old man, who had run out of bread to feed the swans, with the breeze blowing his overcoat, and the squelching mud leaf collages of multi-coloured leaves.
Lunchtime. The children’s distant screaming symphony, far away, like in a dream. The corridor lay widely spread, shining like a beige coloured sea, glimmering and never ending, echoing hollow school-shoe footsteps, and shuffling skirts, in the deep ocean of school music. In a collage of schoolgirls I swam the sea that glimmered and shimmered, glowed and flowed and had no breaking wave of hope.
Sleeping and dreaming, I was in the playground, which was the same colour as the sky. Running in the sky with the playground above my head, I slipped, and it rained blood. No one cared.
In the blue hue, of the blue classroom my stomach did flying acrobatics, everyone had worried faces, their eyes were vindictive and blood thirsty.
“Whose responsible for this?”
My stomach did a triple flip, and somersault, with a superb landing. In a sea of loneliness I was snared. I wanted to dissolve into the atmosphere, but she was smiling. No one ever really hated me, no one ever cared enough to. She sent us outside, to backbite about us. I could see over the desert of crumbling, dusty, musty window panels, that a pack of schoolgirls were gesticulating. What were they saying about us? They rose, and bobbed, and floated up and down like meer cats, in a perfectly harmonious wave, making suggestions to the teacher. Exited voices hummed in sonata of chirping birds. In the musty corridor immersed in sun shadow, I became a shadow in the corner.
The footsteps of angry see-through slippers down the corridor made my heart trampoline jump into my throat. She emerged like an all-engulfing black hole shadow, gleaming and steaming, trudging and plodding. She looked at me with millstone eyes, as her nostrils flared like a rhinoceros.
“Why are you out here?”
I nearly wet myself. Our voices shook in a tremulous atmospheric electric wave.
“ Em, e-e-e-e, erm, we er, er, er, uuuummm.”
“aarright”, she said, with cool calm collectiveness, and trudged off into he next corridor. The sweet wave of joy broke off onto the beige sea, and we laughed with relief. “Pheeeeeeew!” I said, “pheeew” the other said. I looked back through the window. What were they saying about us?. That day, everything died, and was resurrected the next. We never found out.