Escaping a Thousand Memories

In that liminal space between life and suicide, the sun smiles more beautifully than ever. Past Roses Café and Kay’s Beauty Salon, riding the C10 to Meade Mews, I feel a love for life and for love itself. His nudge and his freedom pass shake me from my reverie. A monkey nut taps my foot whilst two lovers kiss at the crossing to Canada Water. The secret sweetness of sadness is in the pursuit of transient glimpses of joy; hysteria, madness, and laughter in this relentless, racing world.

At the Listening Place, life consoles those acquainted with misery, whilst pitying the fools who assume they are happy – who listen to forgotten plans of love and life in the UK. Life is lost at Lunar House and love grimaces at immigration officers. Here, Listening leads to an obscure osmosis; the anonymity of the asylum seeker permeates into the life of the listener. The narrator demands disconnection from their narrative – to detach from flashbacks and nightmares, the terrors that leave them shaking during the night. Tales need to be told before narrators walk away into the neon secrets of China town and disappear dressed in ginger-root oblivion.

There is a supernatural darkness in this city of debauched air, where people wander disillusioned with the drum of the daily grind, escaping into the underground, where the tiles shine like the finery of the poor. The same man sits at Pimlico station pleading for change – asking for a chance to quash that begging rumble in the pit of his bargained body. Destitute and detained. Then destitute again. Thrown out onto the streets like yesterday’s debris. He begs. A drug addict? An alcoholic? You contemplate as you swerve your way into the Pride of Pimlico ordering a pint of Red Stripe. Jamaican beer consumed by a Brit. A Jamaican man deported by a Brit. Deported to a country he does not know. Windrush.

In that liminal space we see the beauty of humanity. That bargained body has carried a load, a load which you could share. You offer to carry some of that load and realise that those who simply walk past are the ones who are sleepwalking. Nobody crosses the world without reason. Cross the street, offer a smile or something to eat, and give him a reason to live in this mad mad world.

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