LAST WORDS

I dreamt that the city was dying and yet that did not seem an entirely unhappy thing. As with any fading conciousness, the barriers between past, present and future, between dream and reality became blurred and indistinct. Walls of concrete and stone seemed permeable and insubstantial. The ground beneath me throbbed and hummed like a giant machine breathing in and out. helicopters and black birds criss-crossed the darkening sky as huge lights pulsed slowly on and off. On Fleet Street, an old woman in a bonnet approached me with out stretched hand. I stopped but she walked up and passed right through me. I felt a brief sensation of warmth and on turning, saw a young man in a tall hat walking away.

I passed down through the inns of court. Throngs of people appeared and disappeared. I could hear seabirds and smell a tart reek from the river. In a corner I saw a child lying but when I approached, it was only a dead hare garlanded by wild flowers. The blare of horns blended with the barking of dogs and the noises of horses, laughter, and wild singing. Suddenly, I was alone standing on a boggy moorland sloping gently down to a wide river. The sun was setting and in the middle distance campfires glowed and flickered as dark figures passed between them and me. A mother called to her children but with words which sounded foreign to my hearing. The background changed again and I stood in Covent garden. The world was spinning, holes opened in the sky through which I could see other places, other cities...