The Fear in the Brickwork

He lay wrapped in blankets, still warm from sleep. He was sore from last night’s drink. He drank an ocean and he was still at sea. When he stood he felt the waves beneath him. He lay drifting towards the shore, as memories sifted back to him.

            He found himself waiting at the platform. The train ground in. He climbed aboard. The train took him through green oaken valleys, past rivers and mossy bridges, on and into the carved limestone city. The sandy streets were old and they used to bring him joy at the mere sight of them. He would stroll along the pillars and statues, under the pediments, with lovers smoking on balconies as the sun ran low.

            Those joyous feelings had turned to fear. The streets had begun to oppress him. They watched him. The people knew. He felt as if the whole city was against him. The empty windows above the streets were filled with watchful shadows. The gurgling drains peered up. The cobbles tripped and laughed. The pigeons, the mortar, the stone, all of it constricted him, grabbed him, pushed him, and smothered him. The inanimate silence spun round with the whirring background of the roads, with the clipping clopping of feet and the voices of strangers, all of it screamed: “Get out of my city, flee this place.”

            He stood looking down at the force of the weirs. This was the place he kissed her for the first time. The river had looked so peaceful then in the pearly twinkle of the street lamps. That innocence was gone, shattered by the fear in the brickwork…