anything…
A softened frame greets me. Like the definite edges have been sprayed away with an imaginary photoshop brush for some semi-real air. Guiding these cells through this frame of reference and this frame in time is tantamount to forging a way through, conspiring to create lasered pockets of time until the next night, when it’s clear and dark and time enough to hide away. Anything could be stashed in this type of dark.
The softened frame melts and i am being glared at by cranes, left, right and centre. A fingersnap of breeze whispers past my eyelashes, and as i prepare to descend and gaze upon ripped wallpapers, the bluetinged sky softens the mood. Hard to cross fingers when all parts are required to concentrate. Slide slowly downwards, through walls coated with sandpaper layers, crusted well, and try your best to get up when you’re down. It’s important, apparently. Anything sometimes is.
While the form may traipse from end to end in footprints, the fuction belongs elsewhere. Wondering back to days when years were younger. When the bright-pink sunset would set fire to the waiting ripples of
cloud in suburbia. And when the suffocating stench of dust, evaporating from peeling paintwork blocked the sky. The times where it is possible to see peace but unable to quite comprehend this eloquent mix of violence and birdsong. The times where anything is possible.
You had a cat by its teeth. Sold lies the world over of shifting sands, cruel humour and all with a quiet turn of phrase. Start them early. Keep them quiet. You’ll see what i mean. As october suns pulled away at the fabric to bind, all you can see now are the stickleback waters, submerged under soapsuds and saline sway. Some might rather like it that way. Anything might.
And once here, like we were once there, the peeling wallpaper roars and crisps its golden mane, imperceptibly drier and dustier than the last time. The space underdoor becomes jammed with a barrier crafted from dense discarded detritus. Layered, stoppered, whatever to do to hold back the flood behind. One day he may leak under and swim through the space between hinge, wood and frame. Anything is possible. Anything is.
And so, to peel back the paper to that day, the day you threw a soft felt ball. A small disturbance. But overtaped. Overmarked. Overdubbed. I can remember it quite clearly. The same dustjunk in the air. The same sunset painted sky. The same exclaimation mark daubed in yellows on the wall, hiding golden peeling papers. This ball was a vivid red, bright blue, yellow of sunsets and a green deeper than forests. It held a bell, under layers of soft foam and stretched felt skin. Slashed and laddered but stitched back together in clashing needlepoint work. Too bright. Garishly, shockingly so. Anything could be too bright.
A creeping creaking feat. Makeshift barriers don’t hold. Doors open. Don’t quite understand. Can’t quite comprehend. A blur of colour passed before my eyes. So much that when i held eyetight closed, to try and see, i could still feel the rainbows, pressing with all their might. The colours danced under eyelids. They made sense when words did not. When all safety hides behind an unlocked door with no latch, and all you can do to stop this moment existing is to see these strikes, this air, this cold, in rainbows. Hiding between the colours, skulking in the hues which open eyes can’t see. Close your eyes, and you’ll see anything.
I asked the name of your game. Anything to respite. Anything to relieve. Anything to make the rainbows fade and leave me in a monochrome home.
You threw the ball, taking a sliced trajectory through the dustladen air. Half of its rainbowed being stopped on contact, and fell to the floor. The other half continued on. It scythed through skin and bone as a bullet, wrenching sinew and squelch in its way. In its path, the organ of lifeblood. In its wake, a vacuum. You got the heart. Sever the arteries, might as well steal the lungs while you’re at it. I didn’t stand a chance. Anything is nothing in a void where insides should be.
Your tone blearingly caught me off guard. Back to forming sentances from words, communicating instead of colour.
“Anythingball. Let’s call it anythingball”.
The colour faded that day.
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