We at Gindylow firmly believe in Words AND Pictures, and that although every picture tells a thousand words, every thousand words tells a nice picture, and this short piece manages to do both in 425 words (more or less) and 6 pictures, and is we feel quite a thoughtful and poetic read.
More soon, sooner.
Trevoir T.
I took these photographs on the way to work. Most mornings I walk instead of taking the bus, and so yesterday, stepping out onto the firm pavement, I set off with the Magnetic Fields playing on my mobile’s mp3, wrapped in scarf and thick overcoat, my green cord cap pulled down low over my eyes.
The air was icy and cool to breathe, as cold and fiery sharp as water sucked through a polo mint. Meanwhile, the traffic passed dirty brown to one side as I marched virtuously to the plangent banjo and synth rhythms plucking in my earphones.
But half-way to work the icy fog, as palpable as a cold cushion, was rent and tiny feathers of snow appeared.
By the time I neared the University, the snow was falling thickly and the whole scene had become a confectioner’s dream. Sugar-frosted trees sparkled against the black and white - mostly white - world. So I stopped, the front of my overcoat and cap thick with an icy rime and I took these photographs on my phone’s tiny camera.
There were the vans of the Moscow State circus, circled like communist wagons in a Marxist Western, their yellow, red and orange livery burnt against the white landscape.
And I secretly wondered if they had brought the Moscow weather with them to ensure that the kids would retreat into their warm tents to see the sword-swallowers and fire-eaters, whilst outside the world got lost in the white, unvarying maze.
There were the branches of the trees, seemingly more stark and twisted than usual against the white sky, their maze-like convulsions etched like obscene cracks into the white, blank lens.
There were the three forlorn balloons supposed to welcome William Morton (who or whatever he was) to the scrubby Woodhouse Moor car park; and yet amidst the unvarying white they were a welcome relief. Warm rainbow tears shed for somebody or others' sins.
And then I had taken all the photos I wanted, and so I turned my music back on and began to slip and slither towards my office, noticing that for a moment everything had become silent around me and that I was alone.
Snow sometimes swishes between you and the world like a curtain, making the little plot on which you stand the confessional booth, and you are alone talking to God through a white, drifting grill.
Then the traffic caught up with me, and a few distant figures slipped into view and I stumbled on, wondering what had happened to the firm pavement I had set out on.
