Simon Parker
The Cello Struggling through the streets of Vienna, she looks for somewhere to rest her cello. The strings need tightening yet her hands no longer have the strength. Uncertainty is in her step. Her world has been tilted and what will emerge from each street she enters fills her with terror. Often, it is a quizzical or dismissive glance but that is enough for her body to shrink to her cello. Flesh, unfed and thinning, pressed hard against the instrument. The wood reaching out to her, calling her to its grain, its history of sound. Music could carry her off, away from these nightmarish days. Monsters have been made real, harmonies silenced by the roar of hate and destruction. Death hides in doorways, smoking a cigarette, seeing what takes his fancy. An elegant chain smoker, happy to watch and wait. Hurtling about like a neurotic banker is not his style. His smoke plume slides through her hair as she passes. The follicles suffocating in its ashy stink. An itch prickles her scalp. She hopes it’s not lice. A man passes her. His shiny lips open and a hard whisper is breathed her way. She clutches the cello as his chuckling rises. She longs for inanimate existence, a last song stroked by the hands of love. Her cheek caresses the neck of her beloved instrument, her arms tighten around its body. She hears a vicious, high pitched sneer as her body is bumped into. Bruised. Her ears crawl into the memories of a concerto. Her fingers tug at the strings as if she has been thrown overboard into a merciless sea and this is the only thing that can keep her afloat. The city dwellers who march through these streets often pass unusual things. Many are oblivious to the cello that lies abandoned on the pavement. A brother and sister try to persuade their mother to let them take it home. She tells them, disease will not enter our household. Curious prods, then liftings and droppings, then spit and kicks until the thing of beauty teeters at the road’s edge. One final punt from a doctor is enough to send it into the road. Its body splinters. Hooves and wheels follow in the dance of destruction. Its former shape is unrecognisable. Dust will come. Disappearance will come. There will be no more music. She will no longer be hungry. ** The Spinning Top A child’s hands cup the spinning top and her body swirls around it, legs straightening, feet lifting from the floor, wings sprouting and tearing through the cotton blouse that shrouds her small frame, her fingers lift first, then the top spins without those little hands attached, a red blur with shapes of gold, shrinking fish out of water, getting smaller as her wings lift her higher, skyward, she crashes into a cloud which bleeds laughter, flecking her wings with its sugary drips, flapping them dry, bone like shards split from feather’s end, a rain of arrowed flight turned earthward, the girl’s flesh disappearing, rubbed into the element of the sky, a patch of blue, pasted in position forever, clouds pass, some make her sneeze, others bring out rages of a darker hue, the thunderous, rain filled beasts that lumber past fill her with dread, a bird will sometimes stop, sing to assuage her loneliness, her longing begins to rust and blue bleeds to grey, another girl arrives, she is pushed into the background, pressed against another child who had been her predecessor, the sky is littered with the lives of small girls, as the numbers swell clouds take them in, particles to be poured back to where they came from, flecks of former lives fall on unsuspecting heads, bereaved mothers stand and let the deluge soak through their hats, hair, run from restless scalps into searching eyes, drown me, drown me, their clarion call, the rivulets running over their flesh are currents of comfort, a signal of what once was, memory flickers in dripping moisture, their hands holding water, pressing it into the creases of ageing hands that have held loneliness for so long, the skin dry, papery, longing, soaked clothes cling to them like the arms of a lover who will never abandon them, dreams corroded, what’s left, hope, the last vestige of life, the battery that keeps their legs moving, their eyes open, in their ears, the sound of a spinning top ** From the Window He hardly ever speaks. He has nothing to say. All has been said, and whatever he says now will bear little weight in the world. Stories he told have lost their sense. And though he can make one sentence follow another, the gap between them feels too large. A space in which his mind might topple never to be retrieved. Single words are safer. Periodic outbursts, short plosive demands, statements ring out like small shots. Drink. Tea. Food. Bed. He hardly ever moves. He sits in the chair by the window, looking out, thoughts following the movement beyond. His eyes, the most animated and avid part of his body. Watching, surveying, gazing. What he sees holds him. The birds that dance for each other and search for food, the cat’s imperial preening, the sky’s radiance and suffering, the clouds shifting, taking shape before disappearing into nebulous mass. The gait of those that pass, their dress and manner. Each sighting is savoured, clung to and then released. The memory of it disappearing with the vanishing of it. Gone. Unremembered but enjoyed. Space is made for the next image to enter. His body is ballooning. Legs and arms swell, his belly hangs heavy in his lap. And yet, the body is dissolving. Appetite fading and organs failing, their strength exhausted, their function impaired, their steady, uncared for beat slowing. The end is waited for. Expected and undoubting but on its way. Sadness and regret are absent from his heart. There is no joyous reaching for the end. He waits. It will come. I will be here and then I won’t. That is his only thought that death has. Death is not eager to approach. The indifference, or such passive acceptance, is rare and insulting. His dark terror is bleached a little by such heedlessness. He will get here, but there are many more interesting stops to make before this man will be taken from his window. His head slumped into his chest, resting above the crack of pain as death’s hand squeezes his heart so that the small pump of blood could no longer find a way in. ** Dance Dance Sleep Dim lights for the partner’s dance. Love in another’s arms. Love in the shadows. Shading in life with some meaning, like rainwater finding its way into an abandoned bucket. The storm never lasts long enough for it overflow. The partners reach an agreement, the warmth of the other body bringing some comfort, a promise of more. The dance will only last as long as the song. And there isn’t that much to sing about. Not now. Unless you are a robin or nightingale in a world where concern doesn’t rise far beyond the worm. Bring us our daily grub. The dim lights are enough. What lies in our hearts cannot bear illumination. We feel the weight of it and the fear of its exposure. To ourselves, to our partners, to those in the world that would nod knowingly whilst holding back the tears. The heart beats on in this shadowy sway. Our bodies find a gentle rhythm to act as lullaby. We must sleepwalk away from the anguish, dance a little, focus on the steps that demand our attention. This we can get right. The final dance of the night. Some harmony. The dimness sucked out of the light, the room emptying as our skin reveals its true colour. We look for our coats and head for the door. We will walk home side by side with the sound of the song, the partner’s dance song, fading in our ears. It’s a long walk home. Our house still stands, our lives still live there. We climb the stairs and prepare ourselves for bed. Sleep is the real refuge. Our clothes discarded, we lift the sheets in search of our dreams, respite. The first chill will be tempered by the hungry blood. Our eyes will mimic sleep so that it may come quicker. Shut tight against thought, against each other, our lids tremble. We try to resurrect the last strains of the partner’s dance song. Silence. The darkness of sleep does so much more than dimness. Let us in. ** Without the Gods we rise. It is early, too early for those Titans to have shaken the fog from their heads. The stench of stale wine seeps from their vibrating lips, a muggy accompaniment to their flatulent snores. Us playthings are liberated for a few hours as they stomp through dreams and darkness. Our light step, our unfettered wandering is free from the ominous gaze that so often trails us, searching for some cruel sport. Without those callous heat seekers what do we do? We love without the thought of disaster. We sing with full throated ease. Poetry is appreciated. Words are not shunted into short sentences that give nothing but commands and information. Rationality is reined in, our imaginations gallop before us and we sprint to catch up. We look to the sky without fear, our heads upturned and appreciative. Stirrings above are the signal for something more sinister. What if we were to murder those that toy with us? More than these few hours would be spent in heart free endeavour, boundless and beautiful. How though? How can mortal man take down the gods? Who shall lead us? Each of us must play their part if new gods are not to rise in their place? Their death shall be democratic. Every woman and man carrying the instrument of death in their hands and hearts. We dance at the thought of such liberation. The music rings out and wakes those sleeping giants. Their bleached eyes struggle to make sense of their ears’ hearing. Their libations have drowned the days beginnings, their slumber snow scratched away by our carnivalesque desire. Our dreams are exposed to marble-hearted minds, the whim of power will not tolerate such fantasy. Their eyes, still unfurling from the atrophy of alcohol, pore over what we are about. We shrivel under the gaze of such force, our dancing feet stumble and return to their dull march. Backs bending, heads lowered, our rising stalled. Opportunity has been cast aside and we must wait. The way in which we wait will blunt our desire, our resolve, our love. ** What Happened to the T.V.? Her hair is uncombed, wispy, greying black, flattened by the rain, sticking to her face. Her eyes dart about, expectant. How long will he be? She waits. She lights another cigarette. Before long its paper will be drenched, its stiffness challenged, the fire out. She will light another. The rain continues, cold and heavy, her clothes are sodden. The sofa she sits on is sodden. People pass under umbrellas, from beneath the pleated shadow, their eyes watch this woman exposed to the downpour. Furniture that should be sheltered inside, her upon it, is on the grass. Its colour darkens, her mood remains expectant. He is bringing her a new television. As soon as hers stopped working, she phoned him. She heard his voice. He would bring round a brand new television so that she could watch him on it. His eyes upon her, his smile for her. The madwoman is no longe in the attic, she is in the front garden, sitting on her sofa, waiting, smiling, damp. Another woman comes out of the house. Carrying an umbrella, younger, nervous, she goes over to the sofa and tries to tempt the sitter back indoors. She gets a look, harsh and disdainful, and a curse. She goes back inside. The woman waits. Bruce Forsyth is on his way with a new television. Such a lovely man, so gentle, so kind and now he is stepping out of the television to bring her one. He understands her like she understands him. They have know each other for years. They have the generation game. She’d played her cards right and now there’d be strictly no dancing when he came but a new television. Between sucks on the damp paper of her cigarette, she began to hum Bring me sunshine. The rain continued. Neighbours looked from the safety of their homes at this woman who had given them so much entertainment already. Whatever next? This. The sofa saturated, her sodden and smiling. There was a man coming towards her. Not Bruce. No cuddly toy. It was her son. What was he doing here? ** Simon Parker is a London based writer, performer and teacher. His work has been published in The Pomegranate London, The Ekphrastic Review, shortlisted by the BBC and was a finalist for the Galtelli Literary Prize. Simon is an associate artist of Vocal Point Theatre, a theatre company dedicated to telling stories from those not often heard, and providing workshops for the marginalised. He also runs creative writing and reading groups for the homeless, socially excluded and vulnerable. For more info go to https://www.simonparkerwriter.com |