Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Once upon a time there was no way to explain. There was no-one to hold on my knee, against my breast, to read stories to. It didn’t matter that all I had was the present moment. Under the umbrella of now I could cope with my empty embrace. Under my umbrella was the theatre of me. I costumed my dreams in spite of the world around me. I wore vintage underwear as outer-wear and I answered to no-one. I went where there was no-one to call my name. Certainly no soft endearments for this vandal. I had destroyed everything with my lapse of attention as surely as if I’d done it on purpose.
On the other side of the world I was anonymous. Every day I packed an old picnic basket with heavy books and rampaged my way around London. Going nowhere, just riding the grey veins of the tube for something to do. The weight of the basket an anchor to the world. Lugging it around like a babies coffin gave me something to do with my toddler-free hands. It was my morbid task to manoeuvre through the grey strangers in that grey city while I avoided myself.
One day, I began slamming the heavy basket into the bodies that milled past me in the hall of Kings Cross station. They all apologised to me yet it was me who was violently charging through the crowd! Whacking myself past the grey strangers who kept going their own ways. “Sorry.” Excuse me”. “Pardon.” They were apologising for my clumsy and angry invasion of their space! Because of this I knew that I was invisible insignificant inconsolable. These London people did not see me, or feel my great lump of a picnic basket as I barged my way mercilessly through their midst. Their automatic apologies confirmed that I had no place there.
And because of that I began to change the contents of my basket, a little at a time. Instead of a book of poems by Pablo Neruda I inserted a blank exercise book. A recipe book was swapped for a box of pencils. In the theatre of me I began to play at writing. Just doodling so I didn’t have to meet the eyes of anyone. Until finally I found some shelter in those pages as words queued up and out. I was immune to the empty apologies and cradled the basket like my lost son.
“PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” I’ve been hiding in London. DING DONG DELL, PUSSY IS IN THE WELL. I didn’t watch him every second.