The dancing traveller who danced and travelled

Some days we set out on some journey and find ourselves going ever towards home. This graduation, gradually gravitation, is not a radiation towards being. It is neither an aggravating change that many travellers have to experience. What it is, that is, what we have, is a discipline which when wanting to know its ways a philosopher-monk will purify for laymen through study and patience. It sounds like hard work. It is! The situation is a victory for reminiscence; where reminiscence is close like the united temporality of money. Such as we know the feeling of the rich, since we know a happy feeling: enjoyment, we are rich. So happy is this fact that many writers have to put themselves forward for manual labour. We are instantly confused. Yet this need not have meaning, although we play as flies and youth. As to meaning, all there is is hard working sanctity. The liberty of saints is the suffering of our very saviour.

The vestibules of the hospital, dark at this hour, echoed with silence. All the patients were asleep, yet at the far end of the hallway a light was on. The night staff shared a joke in their office, probably not at all understandable to non-members of this beauraucracy. It was a laugh of blue collar people. Mary walked away with smiling cheeks and a door closed. It was her round. She was to make sure of the comfortable state of the ward. She walked away down the corridor and checked tbe dormitories one at a time. As she approached the final room she was made aware of a scraping sound coming from within. It was James Little's room. This young man had been admitted last week. His problem was one of religion, for he had complained of persecution. He was dishevelled at that time and was given the medication that the ward doctor thought best for the diagnosis. Mary entered the room with professional caution and saw James gouging away at his feet with some implement that would later turn out to be a parker pen. "What are you doing, James?" Mary had asked. "I'm working on my stigmata," he replied with innocent distraction.

I haven't got a great deal to say about James's affliction, but the messianic triumph is called religious language as conscious belief of the reformed culmination of religious viewpoint. If, when the messiah does eventually return, he will have returned with a greater story than before, things will get serious. Games will be played with the severity of hardened gamblers. Chess, for example, will no longer be a battle of laziness. but will be attacked, and attack will be heavy handed. Children will break free from their imaginary worlds. Men will cry. And all this having happened, discipline will nearly break down with the result that the military will become 'silly fairies'. When this finally takes place we will enter a new phase of humanity. Ghosts will walk again, but said ghosts will be some sort of angels. These angels will, with pride, be zombies unknown in the night. The zombies will have angel-ghosts; professors and deacons and doctors which continually heal the ailing. And the angels will descend from heaven with news that the world is a creation, and then the creationists will laugh a shrill laughter, laughing at the evolutionists. Humans will be reminded of their past lives, where all the hell of eterity will be condensed by the zoologists. WE WILL HAVE BEEN FISH!

The evening light streamed through the net curtains of the window, upon the mother and daughter. The visitor was out front enjoying a cigarette. The sound of the theme tune to a popular children's program rung out into the evening, while dishes and cutlery clanged in the kitchen. This home was like school again, yet from a new view point. The markings on the playground seemed faded to the eye, and the wall paintings told of a fresher time when teachers were leaders for the young minds. The garden was a mess with offcuts of timber and loose cables. This was the visitor's last cigarette. He called to the mother, "Do you want anything from the shop?" She had said no and with that the visitor opened the gate, left, and walked up the hill. This hill took him back to the days when his family would go to live in a caravan for the holiday. Somewhere along the line he had forgotten the serenity of nature mingled with village brickwork. An Austin Rover was parked near a wood; a family appeared over the hill and their dog was off the lead, running towards the visitor. He managed to crack a smile as the family passed on by. In his pocket, his mobile phone alerted him that he had a text message. This, for some reason, probably since the hill was tiring his legs, he ignored. And then, like leaving a city, he found himself as far up the hill as he needed to be, for there was the shop. It had the usual selection of goods: snacks, drinks, magazines, tobacco, alcohol and by the time the visitor had left this place he had purchased a cornish pasty, a chocolate milkshake, and twenty mayfair. On his way back down the hill he chose to use the other side of the road, and he found himself walking behind a group of teenagers. A kid on a scooter zoomed past, shouting sorry. Nature ended there, as he arrived back at the house and sat inside the garden to smoke. "Did you get the milk?" shouted the mother. "What? You said you didn't want anything," called the visitor. "I texted you," she said, appearing at the front door. Oh yes, thought the visitor. My phone did ring. He checked his messages. CAN U BUY SOME MILK? it said.

Our visitations are new. Our friends are mothers and fathers. The foreign coasts of our travellings must broaden our horizons by virtue of their imaginations. We already know that by being together we can prepare for disaster and see disaster through. The bedrooms of freshness can be spoiled by too much 'Febreeze', a cannister with its own smell. We go slow; we go quick, and later, we will not move - but now moving here we are family. And it is soon that we see our fathers with happy tears in their eyes. This would be the very pinnacle of our love. We would prepare for stable relationships by making fit the feet, the knees and elbows, and by cleaning for mother who is talking on the phone, and we are wide awake, and we are four years of age. And it is evening; bedtime.

The friend had phoned the singer for directions. The singer was already on his way, in the van, with his bassist and van driver, going to the gig. All he had was the name of the street and the particular town: Talacre Road, Kentish Town. "What are you saying?" she'd asked. "Talacre Road," said the singer. "Tall-Acre, you're saying," she said. "Yes I think so. I'm not sure." "It's Tall-Acre," assured the bassist. "Ok see you there." The friend managed to make it to the gig on time which was nice for the band who had not all met her yet. During quiet moments she would sit with the singer and tell him the story of her ordeal getting there. Oh, she'd got to Kentish Town okay. But then she'd got lost and had to ask for directions at a cab firm. She'd mentioned that they (the cab firm) had never heard of Tall Acre, and it wasn't until she'd written it down for them that she realised it was know as 'Tal-acree': Talacre. (not Tall Acre). So that was nice.

It was all nice. The scenery sparkled around the edges, yes, but the centre was awash with infinity. Everywhere he went people were saying, "That's nice!" "This is nice!" "The other is nice!" Nice, nice, nice. This was the 'nice' revolution. Everyone was called Mark Nice, or Sandra Nice, or Barbara Nice. There was even a man called Nicolaus Nice! And there was a hill, as ever, stretching up towards the festival boundary. The hill, known as 'Green Fields', contained revellers dancing in firelight, or sitting amongst each other, smoking, drinking, and so on, and so forth. And the bald man walked up the hill, for what reason it was not clear; he was only walking. Perhaps he would find a friend? A smoke? A beat to dance to? He walked and walked until about halfway up at which point he looked ahead and found a group of youths, sitting, watching him. Then he looked behind them, and there was a group, sitting, watching him. They smiled. But not only did they do such things as they did them with a sense of real appreciation. Music was bubbling somewhere in the middle of the field. He walked right, this bald man, with his River Island shirt and tie, and jeans and jacket, and he looked around and saw something he had seen before. He smiled, and smiled at the crowd who had turned in his very direction to stare. Yes it was true, everybody was staring. Yes, they stared, and stared with smiles. The last time this had happened our bald friend had been in college. One day, after some night of studious introspection, he had discovered a new way of thinking. It was not until he had arrived at the college refectory that he realised the gravity of the situation. For standing in line to get himself his hot chocolate, he had glanced up to see the entire canteen staring at him. Yes, they stared, and he vaguely knew why. But what could he do? Why he did a little dance! The students had continued to stare, many with grins, many with disappointed faces. Yet he danced. And this time what he decided to do was just the same. He danced that night, and made many friends. Yes, he danced.

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