51 :
Life was boring for me here. Above me, some ten, twenty, thirty yards, for I couldn’t move my eyes, I could hear the regular rumble of trains, the steel wheels and the rattle of carriages against sleepers, the screech of brakes.
Every few minutes, from Victoria to Brixton, from Victoria to Ashford, from Victoria to Salisbury, Canterbury, everywhere. These trains move. And I watch them out of the corner of my eye. I see the clouds move slowly from left to right, across the horizon of my skyline, and through it all, through the sunrise and sunset, the dawn, the dusk, at the perimeter of my vision I see only two things.
Two huge, white cannons reaching into the sky. Daring God with their ambition, their size, their scope, their grandeur. And the closer we try to get to the heavens, the further we reach into the sky, the further we fall from grace.
Clouds pass. Slowly they crawl from side to side of my vision, pushed by the wind, forming and deforming shapes and colours, blooming into shapes, horses gracefully sliding across the heavens, occasionally punctuated by planes of two, four, six engines that step slowly across my vision. Their engines roaring with the vomit of air, devouring squadrons of kamikaze birds as they attempt to be eaten by the spinning blades, their spoilers, their tailfins, their slow, gentle, graceful sleek shapes glinting in the light of the setting sun.
A helicopter passes. A Saturday night with the roar of sirens, the voice of the streets. All these things happen and I merely watch, observe. Time immemorial. I feel as if always I will be here. When this building crumbles, this earth heats, the planes no longer fly, the birds no longer sing, when all human life is extinguished through war and pollution, until all that is left is the empty shell of a dying planet. Until in millions and millions of years this planet curves into the pull of a dying sun, turned inside out by age, until the planet boils, evaporates, is eaten by the black hole that the ball of fire that hides behind the clouds will eventually become.
Until the satellites that scour the planet with their devices fall from the sky. Until the heat signature from rotting flesh becomes no more than merely part of the world, the earth that surrounds it.
Until not even the universe itself is a memory. Until there is no more.
This is how long I feel I will be here.
And at the end of it, at the end of one of these days, one of these nights, when I have stopped counting how many there are where boredom has flattened time into a punishment, I hear the sound of jangling keys. I hear the sound of packs of men, shrinkwrapped in white, on their hands and knees, scouring the ground for signs, traces, of something wrong. I hear a voice, beyond the usual chatter of the bored. A voice raised in excitement and fear.
It won’t be long.
Every few minutes, from Victoria to Brixton, from Victoria to Ashford, from Victoria to Salisbury, Canterbury, everywhere. These trains move. And I watch them out of the corner of my eye. I see the clouds move slowly from left to right, across the horizon of my skyline, and through it all, through the sunrise and sunset, the dawn, the dusk, at the perimeter of my vision I see only two things.
Two huge, white cannons reaching into the sky. Daring God with their ambition, their size, their scope, their grandeur. And the closer we try to get to the heavens, the further we reach into the sky, the further we fall from grace.
Clouds pass. Slowly they crawl from side to side of my vision, pushed by the wind, forming and deforming shapes and colours, blooming into shapes, horses gracefully sliding across the heavens, occasionally punctuated by planes of two, four, six engines that step slowly across my vision. Their engines roaring with the vomit of air, devouring squadrons of kamikaze birds as they attempt to be eaten by the spinning blades, their spoilers, their tailfins, their slow, gentle, graceful sleek shapes glinting in the light of the setting sun.
A helicopter passes. A Saturday night with the roar of sirens, the voice of the streets. All these things happen and I merely watch, observe. Time immemorial. I feel as if always I will be here. When this building crumbles, this earth heats, the planes no longer fly, the birds no longer sing, when all human life is extinguished through war and pollution, until all that is left is the empty shell of a dying planet. Until in millions and millions of years this planet curves into the pull of a dying sun, turned inside out by age, until the planet boils, evaporates, is eaten by the black hole that the ball of fire that hides behind the clouds will eventually become.
Until the satellites that scour the planet with their devices fall from the sky. Until the heat signature from rotting flesh becomes no more than merely part of the world, the earth that surrounds it.
Until not even the universe itself is a memory. Until there is no more.
This is how long I feel I will be here.
And at the end of it, at the end of one of these days, one of these nights, when I have stopped counting how many there are where boredom has flattened time into a punishment, I hear the sound of jangling keys. I hear the sound of packs of men, shrinkwrapped in white, on their hands and knees, scouring the ground for signs, traces, of something wrong. I hear a voice, beyond the usual chatter of the bored. A voice raised in excitement and fear.
It won’t be long.
posted by Mark at 7:03 AM
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