wake me up

Again there's a haze-veil on the sea horizon, a line above the line. A sliding window comes across, projecting sunlit spaces down a grass and pool-aqua corridor between the buildings. And this veil, which I often notice, "Is it a political allegory? Wake me up when you come down to earth." I'm speeding into my grandmother's scullery, I'm burgling my mother's kitchen: Earl Grey tea, Haliborange. When she died my uncle redoubled his cruelties, (Galdós), -- no, I'm going back to my mother's fitted kitchen. The cupboard doors had a special kind of hinge so that they would not slam - but sometimes I amused myself by making them slam, as when you run at automatic doors and you can just manage to get to them before they open, but not really to hurt; and the staff sighed, standing at the tobacco counter like red-topped bottles of oil and vinegar on a table-top.

It was May. The rubber-plant trees extended long red tongues, letting go of old yellow. On a planter Eve accepted an apple from the snake's mouth. Adán made traffic signals, palm held against his groin, and then an angel showed them the exit. My grandmother had seeded raisins on her muesli - you can't seem to get them now. I crunched them, mainly, while Grannie extracted them carefully from a little purse at the front of her mouth. She also pared apples and laid the little boat-shapes on a bank of oats. From the balcony I see the same game I played then, with cars and lorries on a board with a square of streets. Transport is pleasure and everyone gains pleasure from using their own mode of transport, not only the sharp-edged delivery vans but the cyclists and the people on the bus. I looked up for my mother to wipe my face with a cloth she moistened by licking it. My nose took a buffet but it didn't break my line of thinking; still the truck moved along the broad avenue and went Boff at the motorbike flying across it. I made brake-squealing noises and threw both vehicles into the still air so they clattered on the board. A political allegory? Well, the haze-line wasn't there this evening - the sky above the horizon was white. I don't know what the haze-line is, whether it's an optical illusion or perhaps evaporation from the still sea: it's a long way off. A gold clashing gong crowded with muleteers says, you'll never get to me. You can't get back - burglar, infiltrator, what's worse than a lost boy or a furtive dog named Takeaway. Solicitors for the bike trade: Hills, Short and Stiff. A glass screen slides across another.