The Hero Walks

A gentle walk across a sparking bridge. The trees leaning over the banks like nosy neighbours gave a shuffle, as if they were quickly trying to change their position while I wasn’t looking. I gave them roughly three more seconds of my suspicion before my path began to openly crave my attention. The Sun was falling towards the western hills and kicking its last few rays across the freshly showered bridge, the stones like glass that had been stained with bronzed and coal colours, all mixed around with a painters brush. The river ran, as fast as it could, below my feet, fleeing, it seemed to me, a deathly foe placed higher up and deeply set in the mountains. S.H.

Go Home

Bah humbug and malice and trolls. Muddy skies and filthy streets. Still they change nothing, make only themselves feel better, and the Ones on the top of their towers continue to do what they want. Don‘t think you are changing anything. The Ones are there to do what they want, not what you desire. Even if they do let their tossed coins fall down on your favoured side, it is never because you were there, with your tousled hair and brightened eyes, but because they wanted to change or let themselves move that way. You can never sway the vote with such petty actions, no more than it is possible to reprogram a living entity with computerised thoughts. You cause may be worthy but your time is wasted. Go home, love your family, look after yourselves and rethink what you can do to really make a mark to the better, for us all, for us all.

Tightrope Walker

Into the heart of darkness they proudly step, with boots like blocks of stone. Heady mind and sullied soul, the bleak becomes the march.
She pulled her jacket around feeble shoulders and re-secured her hood. Long black lashes like needles blinked the floating rain from her eyes. A wall of dark figures paraded on in front of her, too little she was deemed to take the full brunt. Her muddied shoes slipped and skated, any way but where she aimed them, her focus now drawn to basics of one foot in front of the other. Alone the people on either side of her sat huddled in their castles, marvelling at her spirit and cursing at her rancour. The night was beginning to die, the day not yet begun, and still she marched through cold and dark and on towards the sun. S.H.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

With the rain comes wisdom. A single drop makes its intense but precarious way from endless amounts of space above.The drop splatters onto the world to join its fellows. Silver petals sheet across the landscape like moving worlds. Their path is set and winding and moves on ahead forever. Lights that sparkle far away call like vibrant laughter with echoing warmth. The vision is set and the shoulders are sharpened. Two paths waiting to be crossed, two drops waiting to continue on falling as one. The clouds carry the message. It must be made so. S.H.

Jungle Drum

The drums began to tap in the distance, gradually building up their volume like an approaching train. The dissident looked for somewhere to hide, an instinctive reaction, and tried his best not to unsettle his head. The figure drifted closer, but still she did not see him. There were enough clothes racks and shinny shelves to help him blend, the constant buzz of beings helping his cause. She moved closer still. He tried his best to think like paint, to become part of the scenery and melt into the walls, a white boy on the white wash. He had noticed her in an instant, his body realising before his brain. The sight of her face from afar enough to squeeze his heart like a sponge. His skin crackled and shifted its nervous weight with alarming fervour, his blood thundering around his veins with exactly the same idea as to what to do with itself as he. S.H.

Go

With the drum rattling gone, the day carried on, and the dissident left the pavement. Over the road and onto the grass, a wide open expanse, skipping over a path or two when he came to it. Milling around in a great arc and the steel above his head subsided. Never able to keep away from the bustle for long, he turned into the sweep, the sway and to and fro, the marching mass, as it ran like a conveyer of faces. Through a door, into a store and the gentle browsing begins. The eyes wander and trip over a sight. The sight of a figure. A familiar figure? S.H.

Dissident

The dissident stands muddied and tired. He walks the uneven path with straightened conviction. The traffic noise sings around him and he settles into his skin. He passes the familiar sights and comfortable landmarks. He turns his trail down a side street and is met by a figure. The figure doesn't talk but he thinks she does and he chirps a friendly reply. An answer is given by the figure as she flows past. He turns and watches the figure depart, the drums in his head thumping and ratting a mad tattoo. S.H.

Walk On

There is a place you can go if you leave the road and make your way through a crumbling fence. Laying your soles on the lush grass you need to scale the hill. Make sure you wave at the cows as you pass but avoid stepping in their left behind reminders of a livestock's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Push through the Kissing Gate with care but step even more lightly into the graveyard. It's a nice place, and without the blankets of snow around its edges, all the more friendly, the tombstones laid back and sighing in the warmth of the sun. Pass the small church on your right and and head towards the local hall. If you look up, the trees are bending from Spring's weight and stretching out their thin green fingers to catch a ray or two from the sky. If you turn your gaze as you walk the hill drops away behind you and falls into the lap of a small valley. A village lies scattered across the opposite hill, like stones dropped from an ancient and gigantic hand. S.H.

The Bread

The bread. The bread. The doughnuts? No. The bread. What about the M&M cookies? They call to me with their little chocolatey voices. Their multicoloured bodies laid to rest amongst a grave of golden brown dough. Yes. Those will do nicely. I will take some of those. In walks a guy right out of a Dolce and Gabbana advert in GQ magazine. I guess he's looking for animal produce. Our little friend saunters up to the deli counter and enquires as to the brand label of the hairnet that the plump little lady behind the glass cases of meat is wearing. At least that's what I imagine he said, I can't say I was listening. Anyway, the bread. The guy thankfully exits my view and I'm left to wonder if he actually paid money for that shirt, of if it came with his Burberry sweater. I make a b-line for the checkouts. I exchange a crumpled bank note for my goods in a plastic bag and onto the streets once again I do venture. The sky is in it's own shade of steel, looking down on us all with a bored expression. I thread my best through the clatter alongside swiftly moving clumps of machinery and metal and hit the steps. A wide set that lead downwards like a gently sloping grey hill. Across the Mall, a cheeky wink in the direction of Her Majesty's abode, and it's into the park for me. Crunchy gravel and jumbled laughter from bohemian wannabes kindles my soundtrack of general city noise and my hunger ceases to be theoretical. Dead candy shells are calling. S.H.

How Long?

It sucks like quicksand. Pulls like tentacles. I walk along in second hand skin and no one notices. It's been worn before but not by me. I trace a path and songs refuse to help, speaking of things in twos and pairs of doves, none of it any use to me. The tether is breached. It's spent and frayed. Parades of bliss before me don't inspire hate but envy. Not envy but longing. The sky changes its face again to rumple up and offer its small condolence. Being awake for handfuls of small lifetimes takes it's toll the most. To remain without relief for so long is a powerful tool for any to use against me, but for one to set me free.
Again, apologies for the melancholy bullshit. Situation dictates manner. S.H.

Ruby

There's a children's hospital in Melbourne. In Carlton I think it is. And at one point I had occasion to be working a day in that hospital. For the life of me I can't remember how I got there. I seem to recall catching a train into the centre. Silver and sleek, graffitied vistas along the way. From there on I think I must have walked. I ambled uphill for some ways, that I know to be true. It was quite early as well. Vacant building blocks and black gum stains on ashen paths. The security at the hospital was amazing, as well it should be. One of the first people I met during my day was Ruby. Ruby was four years old. And only just so, as she proudly told me. She wore these red Mary Jane style shoes, all shinny leather and sparkling silver buckles. They matched her name perfectly and seemed to me to be the perfect kind of shoes for splashing about in puddles. From then on I don't remember more than a handful of seconds or so that Ruby wasn't at my side. She turned out to be one of the coolest kids I ever did meet. I remember climbing on the playground and racing toy trucks with her. Ruby gifted me with a hug before I left that day. Given to a person that eight hours previous she didn't know from a bar of soap. Her little arms barely had enough length to wrap around my knees.
I lived for a further year and a half in the city of Melbourne after that day, but not another time did I see Ruby. She'd be a fair few more years older than four now, but every time I think of her she's wearing those bright red shoes. S.H.

Girl at the Bus Stop

I remember the dead leaves the most. Hundreds of thousands of them, strewn all over the street. Puddles of leaves, small hillocks of the little bastards. All forgotten and blown away. They made the footpath somewhat more difficult to navigate along I will concede, but the faces of them were brilliant. A hundred shades of brown. Who'd have thought a colour like that could be so eloquent?
So, Leeds it was, and towards the city centre that I rambled. Earphones in ears and thoughts being thought. If it hadn't of been for the smile I would have missed her completely. I only turned just in time to see it. Black hair too. Indescribable black hair. She was waiting at the bus stop alone and I was walking past it alone. I returned it of course, the smile, with a feeble attempt of my own, but wether she took in its full meaning I will be eternally uncertain of. Five paces now separated us, then ten. By the fifteenth I turned my eyes back in the direction of the bus stop, only for them to be greeted by a large movie poster behind a perspex sheet. A pair of shoes and a pair of ankles were just visible below the poster, in the space between the bottom edge of the bus shelter wall and the uneven ground. Apart from the familiar black hair I remember only one other thing. She was nice. I knew she was nice, i just knew it.
"Go back," said my stomach.
"You can't now," my brain said back. S.H.