[NetBehaviour] Scabrous and speckled...

[Simon Mclennan]

Photo to accompany text.. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJFYqMmHSlS/?igshid=ut9vfaup30pv

Clipping his hairs with a pair of semi-sharp scissors and making great scabrous and at times speckled paintings - abstract - no subject - but a small bird in a landscape of coloured and shadowed plains, he waggled the tail of his great mustard coloured woollen coat in the freezing air of the attic studio. 

Gazing into the stained and peeling mirror he caught his own eye and scratched the outline of his own head onto a  parchment then threw it down snatching a scarf from the chair and pulling on his leather boots.

He slammed the door and ran down the stairs loping two steps round the tight corners and landings bumping the bare electric bulbs, the pale grey morning light catching his cheek as he passed each dirty window. He noted the bits of dried out putty shrunken and fallen from around the panes lying in the cream gloss painted window sills along with the faded plastic flowers in bunches and the smell of fried onions and omo washing powder drifting up the narrow stairwell.

His orange nylon socks lay sadly around his ankles, the elastic long since given up, and the uneven turn ups of his blue jeans hung over the tops of his yellow boots.

Leaving the house he strode boldly across the angled side road and turned the sharp corner onto the main road where the sulphur street lights illuminated the low cloud above making everything monochrome yellow and brown. 

Later in the mid morning he entered the cathedral passing through the great black studded oak door swinging easily on its ornate iron hinges, and sauntered over to the low radiators running along the walls behind the rows of wooden chairs and took a chair removing his boots placing his feet on the warm steamy black cast iron. He leaned back as best he could in the chair and dozed, the tangled brown hair lying across his face and the collar of the great-coat. Hands in pockets. 

Later he bought two cream cakes and a plastic disposable cup of sweet boiling tea and sat in a bench in the town centre, his feet circled by pigeons.

He devoured the cakes and sipped at the hot tea and read from the pages of an abandoned newspaper lying at his side on the bench. 

The low sun cleared the buildings and melted away the frost on the fag packets and bits of rubbish lying here and there - he sipped at the rapidly cooling tea - a street sweeper passed slowly and pedestrians strolled by off to their jobs. The cathedral clock struck ten and traffic sounds increased gradually and the pigeons moved off to another bench sitter.

Ta, sleep comes slow.

An excerpt from The adventures of Leonardo and B - wot they done and how it all come about. Leo was living a parallel life in a northern town in the 1970s - had lost his memory and his marbles, but suspected something was afoot and just needed to bide his time, rest up and get back on track and back into the right track - time track! Besides, he was missing B and their sojourns here and there... just needed to figure stuff out..

S


Sent from my spyphone 
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