[Writing] The Canal
Title: The Canal
Fandom: None - Original
Genre: Gen?
Summary: Why Drac should be banned from reading Virginia Woolf. Ie: Stream of consciousness experiment. No real plot.
Rating: G.
Beta: Unbetaed. Ele-san~~~~
Disclaimer: I OWN THIS. HAH.
Water is the calmest thing in the world.
Just watch it flow, slowly, idly, down a canal. Even when it churns and froths, dropping down from the latticework of drains into the embrace of the canal - all water really wants to do is reach a state of equanimity, trying to find a way to make all of itself, its strands and limbs of streams and rivers, trying to let all of itself float as one level body.
My shoes say that it is far too wet to walk home along the canal, but black leather shoes do not have a loud voice, and unless my feet join in, it's a canal walk I'll take. There is a coolness along the canal, of a rain just past and the promise of a sea ahead. The breeze blows up through the canal, a man-made red carpet for its gusts and sudden twists. The paving stones are uneven, and my bag and I bump along, up and down as if we were travesting the downs of England and not a simple park canal.
There are white shapes wading in the water, and squawks and caws from overhead. As I draw nearer they materialise into egrets, billowy wings and stark thin legs. They tiptoe through the water, fishing - what fish could there possibly be in a canal, wide though this one is? Perhaps this is the fate that awaits for poor fishy souls flushed down the toilet, escaping one glass cage only to be speared by a hungry bird.
But oh, it is rare to see egrets, especially with this large flock here. Itchy fingers reach for my pocket camera, but as I draw it out, they take off in a swirl of white and feathers, sweeping down the expanse of the canal - too fast! too fast for my shutter - and then they alight in a tree, white spots against a white and blue background. If only the sky wasn't getting dark. I have no choice but to fire off a few shots, of vague silhouettes hunched on power lines, of a lazy wing stretched as if to brush the clouds. The crows are everywhere though - for carrion eaters fear no shame, cawing and laughing at my misfortune.
I pick up my steps and continue down the pathway, sidestepping small, stubborn puddles left after the recent rain. Some huge insect buzzes alongside a party of yellow flowers marching up a fence - it's too big to crawl into their centres, buzzing and buzzing in furious effort. The houses on either side of the canal remain aloof to one another, their cement walls saying keep out, keep out. But maybe this is why they coined the expression that the grass is greener on the other side, for don't the houses on the other side of the canal look newer, large than their distant relations on this bank? Planes of sea-tinted glass that reflect the rays of the setting sun, of the warm orange and ivory used to paint them. In contrast, the houses on this bank snarl at you with talons of rusty barbed wire, of high walls you cannot look over, or crumbling steps you must walk up to get to them. I walk silently through the no man's land of the pathway and the canal, contemplating the waters and the road ahead.
A flicker of movement catches my eye, and I sidle up to the canal, peering through leaf green railings to look down at the water and its skirts of mud. And there, small, hunched - a grumpy little marsh bird, stalking through the mud. Grey and brown against the mud and sludge of the canal - one could almost mistake it for a rat. Out comes the camera again, and this time the bird is ignorant, unwittingly becoming a subject in my lenses. This one hunts alone, a lone assassin, a smuggler, hiding itself, so unlike the glowing plumage of the egrets. It is a bittern I think, and it's name suits it - for all the world like a bitter old miser counting his stock and mumbling under his breath at the showy upstarts of new money.
There is a sharp ring that pierces the tranquillity, and a rush of moving air and gay laughter as a bicycle hurries past, a man free-wheeling down the slope with his young daughter on the handlebars. It is startling to hear such noise after this walk of silence, astonishing indeed. And - oh. The little bittern has disappeared.
I resume my walk, the canal waters following along at my heel, a sinuous, silky dog that shadows me. There! Here is the bridge that I must use to cross the canal now - up and over and down and through, leaving my faithful terrier behind. But in the distance I see another bridge - is that a car I see drive over it? It must be, nothing moves quite like a ton of steel and gasoline. And where there is a road there must be pavement that will let me walk past the row of houses that borders the canal, where I can find my own house tucked away in that little street with no access to this lovely body of water. The bridge tells me, come on, what are you waiting for, you need to get home, but ahead there is another tenuous bridge and a meandering, calm canal, and there is still light in the sky. I turn my back to the insistent bridge, and walk forwards.
It seems like I have been walking forever now - how the houses on the other side of the canal have changed! Just now they presented their sides, like a model insisting that she is prettier when viewed from the right, but now all I see is their backs of greying cement and forgotten plants. They are not that different from the houses on this side after all. The pavement and the canal are still the same though, of bumpy red-and-grey stones and the calm burble of the waters as they follow me on my jaunt. The bridge ahead beckons with bouquets of flowers hanging off it's sides, trailing fingers of pink bougainvillea in the water.
Again, there are shouts and I leap to the side - a vast, bicycle-mounted horde screams past, yelling boyish encouragements and pedalling furiously. The wind whips at my trouser legs, mocking - hah, you on your metal steeds, watch how fast I can run without them, watch me as I rip leaves from trees and ripple the water - I outrun you all too easily.
The wind is too hasty, murmurs the water, one day it will crash into something, and there it will stop, but I, I can just flow around everything. Contemplating, I nod in agreement, and we resume our journey, me to the still-distant bridge, and the water to the waiting embrace of the sea.
The bridge seems to be purposely staying out of reach. The screaming horde rushes over with nary a pause, and I hesitate in dismay - maybe there is no road, maybe I should turn back to the other bridge.
All roads lead somewhere, as do all rivers, says the water, not pausing even for a friend and admirer such as I. There is still light although it fades, it demurs under my gaze. Isn't there another way to reach your destination, just before the school with the boats? It asks. I acquiesce, and follow.
Maybe water isn't as calm as I thought, I ponder. Is it not always moving, in streams and rivers, to find the sea? Even in lakes and ponds, where it is trapped, it still swirls within itself, never stopping, never resting. Maybe water is really an agitated soul, finding no rest, even at its destination in the sea - for the sea has waves and travelling currents. Could it even understand the human concept of a house, somewhere that a human would stop? Ah, but man has already come up with a metaphor for this, saying that still waters run deep.
I move with purpose, says the canal waters. I know where I am going, and therefore I can go there in a calm manner. It looks askance at the wind. The wind doesn't know where it's going - it just wants to go, to race and chase itself across the land. But even you do not stop, busy one, for when you arrive at your dwelling do you not move to the kitchen, the bathroom, and to your bed? And even you lie in bed your mind still thinks about the events of the day, and the events of the day to come.
That's true, I acknowledge. So water and us humans are not too different after all.
The canal waters don't reply, concentrating on navigating between the three supports that the now not-distant bridge extends like legs into the water. Here is my distant bridge at last, but there is no sign of the road. Could I have imagined a car, or seen a mirage? The pathway continues ahead, of course, but it bends and the horizon is hidden from sight.
Don't stop, mumbles the water, there is a way, for I can flow, and I can feel the sea in my veins.
It's true - the salty tang is much more evident in the air now, and a strong sea breeze tugs at my hair, blowing off the sea and bringing wild rumours of walls of water and ships in fog. I set off - I must have passed my house by now, it could not have been this far to walk if I had taken the route by my familiar bridge. The backs of the houses mock me with their gates - if only you lived in me, they crowed, or you knew the person who lives in me! I would open my gates and let you out onto the other side, where the tree shaded road to your house is. It is an effort of will to resist them, to ignore these silly wishes and to forge ahead, following the water.
There. The water sounds pleased. I told you that there was a way. And true - ahead is a road, definitely the road that leads to the lane with my house. But to get to that road there is still an expanse of pavement ahead, and a long walk down that road to my house.
The distance disappears if you move, you know, the water chides as it languidly flows past. There is no choice then - one foot forward, and another, and another - I will get to that road eventually. Or I could end up an exhaust heap by the roadside, like those movies where the heroine has escaped after she was kidnapped and has trekked over vast distances of rocky scrubland, always searching the horizon for civilisation.
The water tells me not to be silly. Look, there are cars ahead already; you do not have that far to go.
Truly, I am soon at the road and it is time to part ways from the canal. I turn to look back at the path we had taken, and far and distant it stretches - the train rails are a sliver of greyish white in the distance, and the canal stretches blue-green in a line, straight as an arrow. I bid goodbye to the canal, saying that I will be back tomorrow, as there is always work and never rest at my office, laughing a bit at this jest.
The water is neutral. It will always come through this canal, as long as it keeps moving, and that journey does not depend on the company of someone else. Water is a pragmatist, after all.
I turn the corner and walk alone, surrounded by two rows of houses, and the black tar of road beneath my feet. Those infuriating black leather shoes are taking their temper out on my feet; a revenge they feel is deserved for a long walk through puddles after a day of already carrying me around my office. (So few shoes understand that they are made for walking, it is a pity, that.) The sun is directly in my eyes now, making the tiles on rooftops sparkle. The road to my house is a good distance away - distance I had already covered, in the other direction! - but there is no way to solve that conundrum, so I will just have to keep walking. Even though it seems far, and even though my feet ache and my shoulders complain from my bag bouncing on them. If I keep walking, I will get home eventually, where I can rest and address their petty complaints. I keeping moving calmly, for I have destination - a purpose - and it is within my grasp. And though the road seems far and daylight wanes, home is just ahead, around the next two corners.
I just have to keep moving.
(2188 words, approx 1.3 hours)
C&C as always. ♥
Fandom: None - Original
Genre: Gen?
Summary: Why Drac should be banned from reading Virginia Woolf. Ie: Stream of consciousness experiment. No real plot.
Rating: G.
Beta: Unbetaed. Ele-san~~~~
Disclaimer: I OWN THIS. HAH.
Water is the calmest thing in the world.
Just watch it flow, slowly, idly, down a canal. Even when it churns and froths, dropping down from the latticework of drains into the embrace of the canal - all water really wants to do is reach a state of equanimity, trying to find a way to make all of itself, its strands and limbs of streams and rivers, trying to let all of itself float as one level body.
My shoes say that it is far too wet to walk home along the canal, but black leather shoes do not have a loud voice, and unless my feet join in, it's a canal walk I'll take. There is a coolness along the canal, of a rain just past and the promise of a sea ahead. The breeze blows up through the canal, a man-made red carpet for its gusts and sudden twists. The paving stones are uneven, and my bag and I bump along, up and down as if we were travesting the downs of England and not a simple park canal.
There are white shapes wading in the water, and squawks and caws from overhead. As I draw nearer they materialise into egrets, billowy wings and stark thin legs. They tiptoe through the water, fishing - what fish could there possibly be in a canal, wide though this one is? Perhaps this is the fate that awaits for poor fishy souls flushed down the toilet, escaping one glass cage only to be speared by a hungry bird.
But oh, it is rare to see egrets, especially with this large flock here. Itchy fingers reach for my pocket camera, but as I draw it out, they take off in a swirl of white and feathers, sweeping down the expanse of the canal - too fast! too fast for my shutter - and then they alight in a tree, white spots against a white and blue background. If only the sky wasn't getting dark. I have no choice but to fire off a few shots, of vague silhouettes hunched on power lines, of a lazy wing stretched as if to brush the clouds. The crows are everywhere though - for carrion eaters fear no shame, cawing and laughing at my misfortune.
I pick up my steps and continue down the pathway, sidestepping small, stubborn puddles left after the recent rain. Some huge insect buzzes alongside a party of yellow flowers marching up a fence - it's too big to crawl into their centres, buzzing and buzzing in furious effort. The houses on either side of the canal remain aloof to one another, their cement walls saying keep out, keep out. But maybe this is why they coined the expression that the grass is greener on the other side, for don't the houses on the other side of the canal look newer, large than their distant relations on this bank? Planes of sea-tinted glass that reflect the rays of the setting sun, of the warm orange and ivory used to paint them. In contrast, the houses on this bank snarl at you with talons of rusty barbed wire, of high walls you cannot look over, or crumbling steps you must walk up to get to them. I walk silently through the no man's land of the pathway and the canal, contemplating the waters and the road ahead.
A flicker of movement catches my eye, and I sidle up to the canal, peering through leaf green railings to look down at the water and its skirts of mud. And there, small, hunched - a grumpy little marsh bird, stalking through the mud. Grey and brown against the mud and sludge of the canal - one could almost mistake it for a rat. Out comes the camera again, and this time the bird is ignorant, unwittingly becoming a subject in my lenses. This one hunts alone, a lone assassin, a smuggler, hiding itself, so unlike the glowing plumage of the egrets. It is a bittern I think, and it's name suits it - for all the world like a bitter old miser counting his stock and mumbling under his breath at the showy upstarts of new money.
There is a sharp ring that pierces the tranquillity, and a rush of moving air and gay laughter as a bicycle hurries past, a man free-wheeling down the slope with his young daughter on the handlebars. It is startling to hear such noise after this walk of silence, astonishing indeed. And - oh. The little bittern has disappeared.
I resume my walk, the canal waters following along at my heel, a sinuous, silky dog that shadows me. There! Here is the bridge that I must use to cross the canal now - up and over and down and through, leaving my faithful terrier behind. But in the distance I see another bridge - is that a car I see drive over it? It must be, nothing moves quite like a ton of steel and gasoline. And where there is a road there must be pavement that will let me walk past the row of houses that borders the canal, where I can find my own house tucked away in that little street with no access to this lovely body of water. The bridge tells me, come on, what are you waiting for, you need to get home, but ahead there is another tenuous bridge and a meandering, calm canal, and there is still light in the sky. I turn my back to the insistent bridge, and walk forwards.
It seems like I have been walking forever now - how the houses on the other side of the canal have changed! Just now they presented their sides, like a model insisting that she is prettier when viewed from the right, but now all I see is their backs of greying cement and forgotten plants. They are not that different from the houses on this side after all. The pavement and the canal are still the same though, of bumpy red-and-grey stones and the calm burble of the waters as they follow me on my jaunt. The bridge ahead beckons with bouquets of flowers hanging off it's sides, trailing fingers of pink bougainvillea in the water.
Again, there are shouts and I leap to the side - a vast, bicycle-mounted horde screams past, yelling boyish encouragements and pedalling furiously. The wind whips at my trouser legs, mocking - hah, you on your metal steeds, watch how fast I can run without them, watch me as I rip leaves from trees and ripple the water - I outrun you all too easily.
The wind is too hasty, murmurs the water, one day it will crash into something, and there it will stop, but I, I can just flow around everything. Contemplating, I nod in agreement, and we resume our journey, me to the still-distant bridge, and the water to the waiting embrace of the sea.
The bridge seems to be purposely staying out of reach. The screaming horde rushes over with nary a pause, and I hesitate in dismay - maybe there is no road, maybe I should turn back to the other bridge.
All roads lead somewhere, as do all rivers, says the water, not pausing even for a friend and admirer such as I. There is still light although it fades, it demurs under my gaze. Isn't there another way to reach your destination, just before the school with the boats? It asks. I acquiesce, and follow.
Maybe water isn't as calm as I thought, I ponder. Is it not always moving, in streams and rivers, to find the sea? Even in lakes and ponds, where it is trapped, it still swirls within itself, never stopping, never resting. Maybe water is really an agitated soul, finding no rest, even at its destination in the sea - for the sea has waves and travelling currents. Could it even understand the human concept of a house, somewhere that a human would stop? Ah, but man has already come up with a metaphor for this, saying that still waters run deep.
I move with purpose, says the canal waters. I know where I am going, and therefore I can go there in a calm manner. It looks askance at the wind. The wind doesn't know where it's going - it just wants to go, to race and chase itself across the land. But even you do not stop, busy one, for when you arrive at your dwelling do you not move to the kitchen, the bathroom, and to your bed? And even you lie in bed your mind still thinks about the events of the day, and the events of the day to come.
That's true, I acknowledge. So water and us humans are not too different after all.
The canal waters don't reply, concentrating on navigating between the three supports that the now not-distant bridge extends like legs into the water. Here is my distant bridge at last, but there is no sign of the road. Could I have imagined a car, or seen a mirage? The pathway continues ahead, of course, but it bends and the horizon is hidden from sight.
Don't stop, mumbles the water, there is a way, for I can flow, and I can feel the sea in my veins.
It's true - the salty tang is much more evident in the air now, and a strong sea breeze tugs at my hair, blowing off the sea and bringing wild rumours of walls of water and ships in fog. I set off - I must have passed my house by now, it could not have been this far to walk if I had taken the route by my familiar bridge. The backs of the houses mock me with their gates - if only you lived in me, they crowed, or you knew the person who lives in me! I would open my gates and let you out onto the other side, where the tree shaded road to your house is. It is an effort of will to resist them, to ignore these silly wishes and to forge ahead, following the water.
There. The water sounds pleased. I told you that there was a way. And true - ahead is a road, definitely the road that leads to the lane with my house. But to get to that road there is still an expanse of pavement ahead, and a long walk down that road to my house.
The distance disappears if you move, you know, the water chides as it languidly flows past. There is no choice then - one foot forward, and another, and another - I will get to that road eventually. Or I could end up an exhaust heap by the roadside, like those movies where the heroine has escaped after she was kidnapped and has trekked over vast distances of rocky scrubland, always searching the horizon for civilisation.
The water tells me not to be silly. Look, there are cars ahead already; you do not have that far to go.
Truly, I am soon at the road and it is time to part ways from the canal. I turn to look back at the path we had taken, and far and distant it stretches - the train rails are a sliver of greyish white in the distance, and the canal stretches blue-green in a line, straight as an arrow. I bid goodbye to the canal, saying that I will be back tomorrow, as there is always work and never rest at my office, laughing a bit at this jest.
The water is neutral. It will always come through this canal, as long as it keeps moving, and that journey does not depend on the company of someone else. Water is a pragmatist, after all.
I turn the corner and walk alone, surrounded by two rows of houses, and the black tar of road beneath my feet. Those infuriating black leather shoes are taking their temper out on my feet; a revenge they feel is deserved for a long walk through puddles after a day of already carrying me around my office. (So few shoes understand that they are made for walking, it is a pity, that.) The sun is directly in my eyes now, making the tiles on rooftops sparkle. The road to my house is a good distance away - distance I had already covered, in the other direction! - but there is no way to solve that conundrum, so I will just have to keep walking. Even though it seems far, and even though my feet ache and my shoulders complain from my bag bouncing on them. If I keep walking, I will get home eventually, where I can rest and address their petty complaints. I keeping moving calmly, for I have destination - a purpose - and it is within my grasp. And though the road seems far and daylight wanes, home is just ahead, around the next two corners.
I just have to keep moving.
(2188 words, approx 1.3 hours)
C&C as always. ♥