Next Stop, Please

The sketchbook is crinkled and browning from use, its covers are in tatters and the gold writing is too far away to decipher. The pages are not used in order but opened at random and spattered with ink.

He uses a brush tipped pen and his eyes never leave their target; his strokes are strong, swift, decisive and taken in with that eye. The eye that he tries to hide from the people around him. That eye, his eye.

He wears no bright colours, nor dark. Khaki greens and washed out greys and the kind of shoes favoured by those who take long walks, an inconspicuous coat and the startings of a beard. He is ordinary, time has etched premature lines in his face. He has the expression of one that does all the watching, he sinks into his sketches as he sinks into the surroundings; no one would watch him, he isn't there. He is colourless. He sees everything.

And yet, in his periphery he is being watched. Blue eyes follow his pen and his face and wish that they too had a note book to scrawl in. Both observers look now to the same face, just woken up and tilting the corners of his mouth downwards. The bottle in his hands is bent and almost empty but he still drinks from it, as if it is a lifeline. Perhaps, it is.

The invisible man stands, it's his stop.

And mine.

Wasteland

Everything is white, the fields, the roads, the pathways, the sky. Everything is covered in the pure absence of colour. Nothing stirs, nothing disturbs the peace that is found there. Only the clouds roam above, their faces staring down at the sleeping wastelands below.

She sails foward, arms outstretched, pulling her cloak behind her. Her flight is as silent as the world below, her cheeks are rosy and her breath clouds the air but she is cold. Her hair flies behind, brittle as ice and her skin glistens, the moisture it may have once had gone. Her pure white eyes stare down at her creation, her season, her time and she smiles a wry smile.

In years past people had asked, begged and prayed for her to bless them with the tiny flakes of her dominion but she had not relented. She could not. But as she sat in her throne, resting between that last rule and this she had heard the other seasons plotting, warming and pushing her out. They were all so different, so separate from her, they all wanted the warmth, they wanted colours and she was neither of those.

There was nothing she could do but wait. She could not act while another was in power. The months seemed to her like years as her plan formulated, wound itself around her fragile senses until there was nothing else and ebbed away at her. Then the time came. Her time, and she leapt from her throne with a mighty cry. To those below it sounded like nothing but the whistling of the wind.

She cast her eyes on the other seasons, her smile moving to light her cold face, and she remained there for a few moments, allowing them to look upon her and think about what they had done. She said nothing as she left them and began her descent, throwing her vast cloak upon the world until everything was covered and no one moved. No one could. So cold was the world that nothing could break through the white, nothing could cry out to the other seasons and even if it could they would not be able to answer.

Her work was done, her frozen dominion created and the others looked on, powerless, as they watched the world suffocate under the cloak of their sister. There was nothing they could do.

Winter rose up and returned to her thrown, looking down upon her wasteland with a sick sense of triumph. This was her prize. This was her place. It always would be. Cloaked in the cold, pure white absence of colour.

Moleskine

It has a life of its own and the figures move inside it when no one's looking. They may be messy and some might be unfinished but they take on the pages as a knight might take on a dragon. The book was coveted, wanted for so long and now that it sits closed on the table, I can't help but reach out for it, grasp the pen and scribble more life onto its pages.

Welcome to the family.

Where Else

I don't like this, this ever-growing cycle of negativity. It's ugly and it's cold.

But there's no other way. I can't say how much it hurts. I can't say how each beat labours against my chest. I can't say how it feels to lose that breath, that life. I can't make it go away. I can't give some reason, some meaning behind it. I can't make it stop.

So this is my canvas. These words are all I can do.

Nothing can stop this repulsive, retching spew of of ice and burden and evil. Nothing can quell this shivering fear.

So where else shall I do this? Where else but here.

Music

There is happiness in these notes, even if the words do not agree. There is a smile waiting there in the sound of each instrument. Each track is new and exciting and each track makes me listen. I do so gladly.

There's nothing quite like it.