The initial import of data from the previous database has now taken place. Over the next few weeks, the rest of the backlog I have (mostly paper notes, and items never entered) will be written up and edited into the correct year, month, and place.
Watch this space. You never know what’s going to make an appearance.
January to mid September stunk. October, I landed a new job, then quit the old one, and December should hopefully pick up. The lack of content here is in part due to the fact that I’d lost my way, and had little artistic inclination over the last year; something I hope to look at over the next twelve months, and tackle in whatever way I possibly can. Sure, I won’t force the process, but I certainly won’t repress it as I have done of late. There’s far too much bubbling around inside to do that for much longer. And as for the current content, I’m not even sure if this database will make out out the other end of the refit.
As always, we’ll see. As for the rest, there’s a story there somewhere. One day, it might make it out. The man from 41C is not yet dead.
The man from seat 41C tugged on the laces of his shoes, and straightened up. He draped his overcoat on the handle of the luggage trolly, loaded his bags, and wondered off down the corridor towards Passport Control. A smile from the lady at the AA desk welcomed him back to the UK, and he half smiled back. The girl with brown boots was somewhere behind, pulling along a little case on wheels, and the couple from row 24 fiddled with the wife’s bag, looking for the stubs of their tickets.
Mister 41C rounded the corner, and padded through the security at the other end. He stepped out into the bleak and cold afternoon of Heathrow, and looked about him. Nothing shone anymore. All he could see was cold, wet, miserable people, and a dark cloud looming overhead. He wondered how much of this weather would stay, and how much was just hanging about from the New Year. Great, he thought. Just what the doctor ordered; rain.
A half hour later, he was asleep in the passenger seat of a car, being carried back into London. He dreamed about the flight, about waking up late and having been sent back to the States, as if he’d bounced back the way he came, as he often did on the District Line in the summer on the way back from Sloane Square. His feigned panic for the people at Immigration, and then joy at the prospect of seeing his sweetie again. One merge onto the A308 later and he woke with a jolt. He looks out the window, peering over his glasses, and sees nothing but the grey sky, rain pouring from the clouds hung in it. He settles back into his seat, and frowns to himself. His friend in the driver’s seat asks him what’s up, but 41C just replies he’s tired. It’ll pass, he says.
“It’ll pass. “
The man in seat 41C grimaced as the light above him blinked on in a rather obnoxious shade of dirty orange. The man with the Sox cap in 42B had pushed the little “Attention” button to summon a stewardess because he couldn’t find his pillow. Take this, the stewardess coo’d at him, and passed an unused one from a seat three down, next to the girl the the brown boots.
The girl shifted in her seat and adjusted her blanket, buckling the belt over it as the captain had said to do before the flight hit the night somewhere over Newfoundland. The remnants of the lackluster in-flight meal, a small pack of grapes, sat half-eaten on the armrest beside her, but for one which had escaped the plastic confines of the cup and rolled off down the aisle to be trodden on by a heavy-set gentleman in his socks on the way to the lavatory. He sighed and shuffled along, glancing over the sleeping occupants of Economy. Somewhere in the middle of the cabin, a man with a now spent video game sprawled, all six-feet-six of him, across five seats. Everything from 38B to 38F, and half an aisle were taken up with his frame and bags, which bumped the front of the brown boot girl’s seat, which had caused the grape to roll into the path of the man in his socks from 24F.
His wife in 24G curled up as best she could in the seat, and pulled down her mask to drown out the blinking of the video game from the man in 38B-F. It wasn’t until an hour later that a steward pulled the batteries and shut the blasted thing up.
From 22A to 45A, all had been looking out their windows on take off. The pounding rain had delayed the flight by almost two hours, and as the rain turned to slush and snow, the show became all the more entrancing. Of course, as they’d fallen asleep, the windows had remained open.
Only the man in 36A had the sense to close it; a seasoned traveler, he’d sat down, pulled out his own pillow, earplugs and blanket, pulled down the window, and dozed off within a matter of minutes. He’d missed the entire show. He’d made the Chicago-London run enough times to know it by now; he didn’t care to watch.
Across and down from him, the man in 38B-F shifted, and woke groggily. He lumbered up, and sat down in 40C, reclining the chair as far as it would go, leaving his bags, and shoes, sprawled over 38B-F. Only the satisfying tinkle of metal and glass gave away the fact that he’d just sat on his own glasses that he’d stuffed into his back pocket before falling asleep across the seats. Of course, he wouldn’t notice until landing the crumbs of glass pouring from the tear in his jeans back pocket, into the shoes of the man in 41C.
The man in 41C tutted, and moved his shoes to the right of the crack in the seat, and turned onto his side, as best to avoid the crushing of the seat of the oaf in-front of him. He sighed heavily, and closed his notebook, stuffing the pencil into the spine of the binding, and putting the whole thing in his bag next to him on 42D.
He buckled his belt, and fished into an inside pocket of his bag, and pulled out a simple wooden bead Rosary. Wrapping the beads around his fingers, he pressed it all to his forehead, and said a silent prayer for the ones he’d left behind in Chicago, and wondered when he’d see them again.
The AA98 flight banked over the Eastern coast of Greenland and made for Reykjavik, though and down towards London. Daylight broke as the plane turned port-side facing the sun, and shafts of light burst through the cabin, illuminating the passengers in red and yellow tones.
The man with the Rosary tucked his legs up under his seat, and turned to face the sun and the windows. He shut his eyes and dreamed of his lover.
That is the clock that I use to set myelf. I wake up in the morning, hit f12, check the weather, and the time, and ger ready for the day. I’ll hit f12 a few more times here and there, stopping for lunch, and later, counting out the seconds until I can pack up, shut down the VPN, and relax. And right now, instead of defining my wake up and bedtime by it, I’m looking at it, and waiting for my email to “ping” at me. Quite why, I’m not sure, but I’ve this feeling I’m expecting a message.
Maybe it’s someone telling me to write more; maybe telling me just to write anything, so long as it’s there, on the screen, not a vauge mess inside my head. Either way, I’ve lots to say, little time to do it in, and I owe people updates.
Anyway. To be done before December 26th;