Story Cities

by Cherry Potts

  There’s been plenty of delicious firsts since, mind, pushing the pleasure buttons one by one. And I have a good man these days, dependable, and mine. Even now though, when it’s a mild autumn or winter is late, maybe, and rain mizzles down after dark, I re-waltz the exact same dance floor. When the stars go blurry and drunk, I twirl in a tangle of raindrops stretched into fine strings. Feel your hand on my back and another settled at my waist holding me tight, and right. The world around me is a jukebox, there’s wine in every ale house to make my insides glow. We’ll always have rain here in the city, thank God. And we’ll always feel the push and the pull, and a sharp tug to the heart, at each dark and hidden corner.

  CAREFUL WHERE YOU TREAD

  Rosamund Davies

  Around that corner, many years ago, a little girl trailed behind her mother, hopping from one paving stone to the next, taking care not to tread in between them onto the cracks, because she knew that, if she did, the bears would jump out and get her.

  ‘Come on,’ her mother said, ‘walk normally.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said the little girl, ‘if I do, the bears will get me.’

  Her mother laughed. ‘Well, hop a bit faster!’ she said.

  The little girl took no notice, but carried on hopping and skipping at exactly the same pace. They passed on by.

  Today, at this moment, a little girl comes round the corner, trailing behind her mother, hopping from one paving stone to the next, taking care not to tread in between them onto the cracks, because she knows that, if she does, the bears will jump out and get her.

  ‘Come on,’ her mother says, ‘walk normally.’

  ‘I can’t,’ says the little girl, ‘if I do, the bears will get me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ says her mother. ‘Hurry up!’

  The little girl takes no notice, but carries on hopping and skipping at exactly the same pace. They pass on by.

  Under the paving stones the bears wait, still hoping that one day they’ll get their chance.

  HOLE IN THE WALL

  Ash Lim

  The best food is often found in alleys at night, in dimly lit side streets with only a few flickering signboards to light the way. A laughing couple passes you by, raindrops bouncing off their umbrella while your shoes slosh through deep puddles. You battle through the blistering wind as you pick up the faint scent of tempting, welcoming food carried on it. You desperately hope for something hot, something that would scald your tongue and bubble in your gut like a boiling pot of soup but will wrap your body in enough warmth to carry you through the rest of the night.

  So, you keep going.

  You know you’re there when your senses are violently assaulted. Not just by the smells of the dishes themselves, but by the deafening noise of the patrons inside the small, hidden restaurant. Groups, couples, and the occasional solo eater all squeezed into a hole in the wall, beer bottles clinking against each other as office workers celebrate the end of a long day, roars of the only chef as he sends out plates and plates of piping hot food.

  You squeeze in, managing to fit yourself into one of the corners of the restaurant. A sparse menu printed on a sheet of laminated paper is thrust in front of you; the waiter is already waiting for your order. He knows you don’t need the menu, because every single person who comes here ignores the menu. You’re no different, and you place your order with a quick grin: the chef’s special for one, please.

  While you wait, you twiddle your thumbs and look around you, living, breathing, and just taking it all in. Some faded posters are plastered on the walls, and possibly a few decades ago you would be able to tell whether it was an advertisement for the bakery down the street or a photograph of a famous rock band. You watch the waiters bustle about, steaming bowls and hot plates teetering in their skilled hands as they rush to keep up with the restaurant’s flow. Whatever music there is playing in the background has long been drowned out by the everyday slap of sneakers against the floor, and the reverb of metal utensils hitting against each other as they are gathered up.

  You know it has arrived before you even see it laid on the table before you. You know that the one bowl of soup that just left the kitchen is going to find its way to you; true to your instincts, the waiter weaves his way around the crowded tables to bestow his charity upon you.

  When it hits the table, you bear witness to a new world through billowing clouds of fragrant steam. With a trembling hand you carefully dip your spoon into the rich broth and lift it to your mouth to taste.

  Was it worth the exhausting trek through a rainy night?

  Absolutely.

  PASSAGE

  Jess Kilby

  Laneways are for hidden things. For hiding things. When you grow weary of the city step into the shadow of a narrow lane and you will become invisible, I promise you. The sunlight will lose sight of your face, for just a moment, and you will slip through.

  You are in here now. In the silence, and the stillness. Don’t sit down though, on that milk crate or that gummy doorstep. Keep moving. But slowly, slowly. Because laneways are also for finding things. You might think I’m being metaphorical, and there’s that too. But I mean real things. A Coke can crushed into the shape of a heart. A rose petal floating on an iridescent puddle. A cigarette lighter that still has some spark. If you are looking-but-not-looking you might find other things as well – a discarded lotto ticket, the glossy feather of an unfamiliar bird. Look up: ballet shoes dangling from the power lines.

  Certain things will seem too insignificant to matter, as if their presence is to be expected. Surely every laneway in this city is strewn with old bolts and rusted nails, with bottle caps and broken glass? The glass pops and crunches underfoot, one step closer to becoming glitter. This city is paved in glitter.

  The longer you linger, the more you will discover. Linger long enough and you will become invisible even to yourself. What will you discover then? A play of colour between the graffiti and the rubbish bins? A luminous alchemy of sunwashed stone and shadowed brick? You might perceive patterns in the cracked concrete, or see for the first time the weeds and wildflowers at the edge of everything.

  Metal washers, plastic straws, a curl of orange twine. A leather glove, a pink ribbon tied around a drainage pipe.

  You will put some things in your pocket; you will leave other things behind. Most things you will leave behind. But you will take those things with you, too. And here I am being metaphorical, and also not. For once you have seen a rose petal drifting in an oily puddle – I mean have really seen it; have watched the clouds float by until your petal has sailed a thousand skies; have learned to tell the tides from the slightest stirring of a breeze – once you have known these things, they belong to you. And you belong to them. Even as you slip from shadow once more into light, as you cross the busy intersection and are swallowed up by spectacle, you remain one with all that is hidden – and all that is waiting to be found.

  TECH DOWN

  Nic Vine

  Feet hurt too much walking explore off beaten track solo adventure internet safety net good idea phone died no idea where I am shops shut no-one around city side streets all look the same why is there no-one now it’s raining I’ll have to walk perhaps that street crash hello tarmac why am I lying under a bicycle can you help me loud swearing man bicycle gone limp round the corner rain comes harder into archway sink to floor rub hands and knees can’t stay here must be that way left and right and left and right still no clues here’s a square giant trees sheltered benches sit and rest…doze…sleep…jerk awake shiver cold up again and on repurposed warehouses tall dark building sites blocks of flats all secure all quiet pressing a button too weird I wouldn’t answer me why no phone boxes why no street maps bloody internet bloody faulty charger leg hurts really not funny church for sanctuary imposing oak doors firmly locked I’d pay tithe by plastic nearby doorway here’s plastic and cardboard need sleep make a bed ow here’s a body not warm not good why is there no-one stumble on get help remember church tow
er faceless streets streaming wet finally bar open empty barman looks reach for wallet no wallet where wallet tarmac wallet bloody bloody cyclist ask help ask police church body no understand shout louder wild eyed hello street door slam sob gasp street bucks and turns buildings leer down threaten why is this happening what did I take why is this happening what did I take what did I TAKE breathe breathe breathe must rest must sleep mustn’t sleep not here stand up lean on wall stagger on endless side streets no life here’s a square same square going in circles to the square so hungry smell food check bin soggy bun red sauce try ahead not left not right leg hurt arm hurt head swim keep going window light door push warmth greeting supporting arm bench rest…soup bread tea…camp bed shoes off blanket…salvation…sleep.

  SQUARES AND PARKS

  SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI

  Cathy Lennon

  They made me out of bronze. There is a permanence to bronze, you know. The rain – there’s a lot of rain – and the pigeons are just irritations that do nothing to destroy my essential solidity. Day and night I like to survey the square from my plinth. My right arm is slung across my waist and my left juts out at an angle, which, I am sorry to say, proves something of a temptation to the nocturnal passers-by. Training shoes have been strung over it, and umbrellas hung. Every September I am guaranteed a traffic cone for a hat. One night, a woman with a ring through her nose and magenta coils of hair covered me in yarn. It made the city news.

  There is a peculiar man who comes from time to time and stands opposite me. He is dressed like me and covered with paint. He strikes the same pose and when the children approach, he stays very still. Even when they poke him. But he disappears in the late afternoon and sometimes I don’t see him again for weeks. Another man comes most days and unpacks a trolley. He pours sand onto a board at my feet and with great care and skill he makes a sculpture of a sleeping dog. I have always loved dogs. If I could speak I would tell the sculptor that he should do it in bronze, because bronze is permanent. The sculptor has eyes as blank as mine. I am not sure he understands what permanent means.

  Just lately people with clipboards have come. They are conducting a poll, they say. Some of the people they approach just ignore them but others nod their heads vigorously and sign the petition. ‘It’s about time,’ they say. ‘Not a single woman,’ they say. ‘Imperialist,’ they say. I can’t speak, of course. I just stare out across the square. They will be gone eventually. But I am made out of bronze and I am permanent.

  TRUING THE SQUARE

  Dave Murray

  She invites him to sit in her favourite park, in the middle of the city square, on the bench with the dedication to a marriage of thirty-two years, the one with a faint canopy of foliage so you can just feel the rain, hoping he will return to this place after she has left.

  He takes her to his favourite coffee shop, the one that lets you choose the origin of the beans, sitting in the window where you can discern the reflections when the light is just right, imprinting a virtual image of the two of them sitting side by side that he will later recall.

  She shows him the bakery to which she has walked every week, knowing that once he has tasted their apricot tart he will return at least occasionally (perhaps one day they will ask him how he found the shop and he will start by saying my friend used to).

  He tells her to look up at the exquisite markings in the brickwork on the side of the old hotel, because only by looking up do we see the real city, a phrase that he hopes she will remember in every city that she passes through in the future.

  She leads him down an alleyway, through a graffiti sprayed door and into a small room with a serving hatch that leads onto a kitchen where she hands over a note in exchange for a paper bag containing small, white parcels of seafood, knowing he could never find it again.

  In the bar on the corner of the square, he plays a jukebox for the first time in ten years, paying for one song from the album she has just told him is her favourite, in the hope that she will remember him every time she hears the song in another city.

  They walk together, hand in hand, to the corner of the square where office workers wait patiently for the green man. They kiss in the knowledge that they are seen, in the knowledge that they have left a memory in this square.

  SPIDER GOES TO THE PARK

  Melaina Barnes

  Imagine I am spider. Not an absurd insect-human, not a fantasy monster robot imitation. Just spider.

  Small, work-a-day thing. Spider of wing mirrors, railings, tunnels and threads.

  I crawl. I search for blades of grass. I need them, yes I do.

  Cracks of green in broken streets. Cobbles, concrete, can’t resist when stems insist and grow.

  They’re what I want. But more than that, an open space, full of green, where I can dream.

  Noisy dogs. Unhappy whines and barks break hearts as they ask to be let out. They can’t run, not now, not down the streets where I crawl on hydraulic legs.

  Bee wings, o rapidity, o joy to follow. I am too slow, too slow. They know the way to go. Try to guess the path. Pneumatic push in my control to find the point where vistas open up.

  The city’s streets keep things in place, no roundabouts crawl off. I want the point where they give up. Where I can run, jump, move. Full of fluidity. Before the death curl that will come in its own time.

  Compressed crawl, slowing now. Feet drag in rain. And there it is. A gap, a path of broken stones. I follow. I hope.

  And here I am. Space full of breeze. Green leaves, green earth. Clover to climb. All legs tremble, heart beats fast.

  Dew at dawn. Every droplet vibrates. Every droplet sings. And the song draws from deep earth the knowledge of creatures who went to sleep. Now spider is the one who knows.

  Imagine I am spider.

  SURVIVOR

  Rachael McGill

  I was so excited when they told us the conditions were right to visit the old city. Some people come the whole way and have to make do with the Island Parks and the overpriced souvenir shops because the weather’s too bad for the dive. This trip to the motherland had used up all my savings: it was my only chance. We transferred from our aerial pod to a diving pod through a translucent tunnel, so we weren’t exposed to the air (poisonous, they said), but I heard the wind whistling, felt the diving pod tilt with the movement of the sea. The water was so opaque it looked black. I ached to touch it.

  The sea was murky – we wouldn’t have seen a thing without the laser beams and the virtual host directing us where to look. A glass and metal structure loomed into view, covered in green and brown blotches. The host said ‘your wrist screens show an image of this building as it originally appeared. The organic material that now covers it is sea life; native algae and crustaceans.’

  I preferred the building as it looked now, fascinating textures all over it. The image was just a taller version of the constructions I was used to.

  ‘This building stood at the head of a grand square in the centre of this city,’ said the host, ‘which was the capital of the nation that existed when this land was above the sea. It was one of the richest cities on earth.’

  ‘Can we get out and look for treasure?’ someone joked. We’d all heard the fairy stories.

  The host didn’t catch the humour, or chose to ignore it. ‘The wealth of cities like this was like our wealth,’ it said, ‘principally virtual, rather than material. This was a civilisation almost as advanced as our own.’

  Something glinted at the edge of my vision. I looked out of the window into an unblinking grey eye. Around the eye was scaly skin. I’d seen images of fish, but this was different. I’d always thought non-human creatures were like robots, but they were more like people than I’d imagined. The fish seemed to be having thoughts I couldn’t understand, about me. I wanted to apologise to it, on behalf of my ancestors, who’d left its ancestors behind on a poisonous planet with cataclysmic weather. Of course it wasn’t really the fish I pitied, but the long ago people without savings to spend o
n interplanetary travel, who hadn’t been able to escape.

  They’d warned us about thoughts like this before we entered the mother planet’s atmosphere – emotional reactions to all the different colours here, feelings of loss, survivor guilt. We were supposed to take a calming pill. I fingered one out from the pocket in my belt. The fish floated, level with my face. ‘Should I take this?’ I whispered. It flicked its silvery tail and disappeared.

  IN THE PARK, MAN WITH THE GUITAR

  Kam Rehal

  There he is, man, just out there.

  So far, with nothing, just all alone – yeah sure all those others are there too, cameras, smiles, clicks, shuffles, glancing back, letting it affect them like the softest ripple touch, hands – but for him it’s just the deepest, coldest time. It’s just him. He’s not actually reaching them the way he needs it. Listen:

  How can he keep on like this?

  It’s desperate, spectacular, a spectacle, useless – shifting, clicks, small stroller wheels, clicks, children patter, waves, travellers get their bearings, soft claps –

  He can’t, can’t stop it, moving further out toward them, just no use.

  It’s not what they register, he can’t get it all, any of it,to them.

  He’ll be here again tomorrow.

  ON WHOSE BENCH ARE YOU SITTING?

  Jane Roberts

  Sit on the bench in the square for long enough and you will hear the pigeons speak to you. You will not understand them at first, and that will be most frustrating for them. But speak they will, regardless of your auditory deficiencies.