Trying to change the world in an afternoon.

It had more than I ever could have; invisibility, freedom. The chance to just leap into the air on an updraft of wind and soar away into the blue abyss, never to be seen again. It had grace and silence. That element of surprise and ghost like valour as it circled elegantly above my head, each circuit getting wider and longer as it was lifted further from the ground. The dark chestnut underside of it’s wing hinted at something deeper and more sinister than the array of feathers that first meets the naked eye. A history of brutal youth, savage murder of innocent creatures just for the selfish benefit of surviving. If I listened close enough, I could almost hear the gentle scraping of air as it slithered between it’s feathers. Each particle of oxygen was like a sickening admirer, caressing each quivering, feathered cartilage like it was the Messiah himself. The Buzzard was the master of control. Even I could feel myself being enchanted by the mesmerizing spirals that the Buzzard was whirling around in.

I could’ve been anywhere. Walking down that country lane was like walking in a dream. As I traipsed further up the incline I was swallowed by a tunnel of trees. They arced above my head in a swoop of emerald leaves and cracked branches. They were like lovers clasping hands, their delicate fingers entwining adoringly as if it was for the first time. On one side there were the immigrants; the Mexicans and the lesser folk in society. Those who did not have the right papers, or blood type, to cross the infinitesimal border separating them from the rest of the world. On the other side were the lucky ones; those who had been born in the right place, at the right time, from the right mothers. The Americans, the Californians. An unexpected love had blossomed as the saplings bloomed across the gulf of tarmac and for hundreds of years they longed to touch each other but the distance was too great. And now, as they curled their withered spines and stretched their cracked, twisted limbs they could finally feel the hard flesh of their soul mates. I gazed upwards into their sun dappled leaves and absorbed myself in the passion. It was a love that never aged, never faded and never forgot itself in the midst of chaos. It was an inhuman love. The wind began to whisper amongst the branches and the trees were suddenly singing to each other. Notes ringing out across the empty fields and dancing on the surface of the stream that runs nearby, like a dragonfly flitting back and forth between flowers and stones. Their song was a sign of everlasting devotion to each other, like a song reminiscent of their last dying words to each other.

As I plodded on the only sound that could be heard were that of my heavy bottomed Doc Martens thudding against the road, which for all intensive purposes was meant to be the busiest route in the village, but not a single car had passed through since about 6am that morning. The patterned thumps echoed off the canopy of leaves above me, shivering in bursts of thunder between the trunks. The sound of my heart beating was the only indicator I had of time passing, and even then the rhythm was so varied that I could not tell how long I had been strolling for. The constant thud of blood pulsating in my ears was therapeutic and the sensation sent a hot tingling feeling across my forehead. Subconsciously I lifted a hand to scratch my hairline and accidentally squashed a minute fruit fly that had been perching there. It’s tiny, dismembered body lay in various positions on the tip of my finger, it’s entrails smudged in a little yellow stain like dye across my skin. My face crumpled into a disgusted wince and I apologised under my breath. I didn’t believe in God, but I still felt compelled to say sorry: just in case. I wiped my fingers against the stone wall of an old cottage hunched at the side of the road, sending an avalanche of tiny mortar boulders cascading to the ground. I walked on. My denim encased thighs scraping together as I continued resembled two dry hands rubbing against each other. For a moment I was a builder, dusting off my dirty, weathered palms before picking up a steaming mug of Tetleys, graciously provided by the client. Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.

As if I was a foul tasting piece of fruit the trees spat me out, leaving the gaping mouth of the tunnel still wide in disgust and the slick grey tongue hanging in the open air trying to rid itself of the aftertaste. The brightness of the sky was so shocking that I had to throw my hand across my face and stumble into various objects at the side of the road before my eyes accustomed to the light. I rubbed the nettle stings profusely. Each burning sting formed a white bump on my bare shins and left me looking mottled and alienated. The countryside knew that I didn’t belong there, the countryside didn‘t want me there, not this city urchin. The stench of petrol fumes and crowded streets never leaves once it grabs you, clinging to your hair, your skin. Everything about you reeks of stress and unwanted chores to do, people to meet and places that need refurbishing. It leaves the soul nothing but a shrivelled black worm in a rotting core. For a second, I drowned in all that was waiting for me when I returned back to the city. Great waves of self-pity crashed over my head and drew my last breath away from me. I imagined, as I succumbed pathetically to my despair, that Kate Winslet must have felt a similar sensation as she watched her lover become swallowed into the ocean.

Isolation is a lonely emotion.

My lifeboat came in the form of a loud humming noise. The shivering waves of noise reverberated in the once calm atmosphere. It gradually increased and then quietened like the ebb and flow of a river, as if whatever was making the noise was running towards the road and then veering off again in the opposite direction. Bemused, I surfaced from the Sea of Sorrow and cast about, whirling around on the balls of my feet to see where the noise was coming from. Nothing moved on the ground. The tall grass in the surrounding fields was still, no cars approached from the far end of the lane, no tractors gurgled on the farm nestling behind the trees. All was still.

Then, like a missile buzzing across the sky the perpetrator showed itself, a triangle of folded handkerchief floating on an invisible cloud. Paragliding had never appealed to me. It might’ve been because of the long list of fatal consequences that could occur with a slight miscalculated judgement. I watched the tiny form with a sense of dread and thought of the soft collection of flesh clinging to the handles; miles up in the air with nothing between you and the ground. Like a marshmallow being dropped from the top of a building, the floor would make no exception for the tender bundle of meat. I thought of the Buzzard, graceful and imperceptible, and now looking at the marvellous metal creation twirling around in the sky above me, I realised how ugly and obtrusive human beings really are. We envy nature, we use our hands (with those amazing thumbs) to change nature, we fear it like our sons and daughters fear the monster underneath the bed- so we try to overcome it. Humans are not meant to fly, we have marrow within our bones and heavy blood within our veins; yet here before me was a man who had defied all this, managed to rebel against evolution and take his feet of the ground. What had he achieved? In my opinion he might as well have been on sweet Mother Earth, jumping up and down continually whilst flapping his arms in a way that suggests mental instability, like children do when they demonstrate that “Yes! I CAN fly”.

I placed my hands over the sides of my face, blocking my peripheral vision so that the only thing visible to me were the deathly, noiseless fields before me, and I could see only a vision of utter peace. The electric blue sky folded into the green of the fields like thick cream, there was no forced fusion. The alliance between space and earth was natural and peaceful. The heat rising from the ground blurred the borders between heaven and hell so that it became one glorious ocean that rippled, colours fraying at the fringes of each surface. Singular shape did not exist. Colour became distorted, shapes became non-existent yet the definitive sense of being alive was still there. It was beauty burning in the heart of the countryside…
Then I removed my hands and saw the true picture. The dark tarmac of the surrounding road filled the corners of my eyes. It was death hovering at an old mans’ heart, waiting for a single beat that was out of time, a chance to wrap a ghastly claw around the faulty ticker and squeeze. Drain the blood from his veins and watch him fall to the floor, crippled and distant.

Time seemed to pass like wall plaster through a fine mesh sieve. The paraglider flitted this way and that, lumbering and slow in comparison to the King of the Sky. Then slowly, as if that section of the atmosphere had become tediously similar, the As soon as it had gone the silence became a deafening roar that plunged into my ears and pounded inside my head like an African drummer. I walked on with an even more sensitive ear to how loud I was being. I longed to be invisible, like a ninja. I wanted to dance across the earth with my feet barely touching the ground, feeling the warmth of dirt gently fall through the air and hiss back to the floor as I flit along the soil. I wanted speed. I wanted agility. I wanted to grasp the magic of the Buzzard between my two hands and swallow it, feel it seethe between my aching bones and feed the sparks yearning to ignite in my blood. Stuck in a rut I could no longer bear the pain.

Quietly I removed both my shoes. My socks were destroyed but they had been faithful to me throughout the horrific years of athletes foot and flaking soles, so I felt obliged to continue wearing them until they disintegrated beneath me. The ground was rough like a coarse carpet. I could sense each tiny stone of broken road pressing against my feet. I raised myself onto my tip toes and put one foot forward, carefully placing it on the floor like I was putting a baby into a cradle. It made no sound. Joy filled me with a warmth that flamed fiercely behind my eyeballs and I was certain that if someone had been standing before me they would have seen an iridescent orange glow in the whites of my eyes. My heartbeat began to race. I could feel a childish excitement overtaking me as I placed the second foot forward, making less noise than before. I closed my eyes and held my breath. I started to run blindly along the edge of the road, keeping my legs stretched apart so that my thighs made no noise brushing together. Indeed, I realise I looked absolutely ridiculous, but I had what I wanted more than anything else. In my head I was as weightless as a blade of grass in a hurricane. Thousands of people were surrounding me yet they were blind to my presence, I was too quick to be seen and too silent to be heard. I absorbed myself in my own head and let images of flying fill my mind.

As soon as I’d left the ground I heard the low rumbling of a heavy vehicle charging towards me. I opened my eyes and leapt onto the grassy verge to avoid getting run over, feeling that it wasn’t my time just quite yet. For a fleeting moment I caught the expression on the driver’s face. I had to smile at it. The bewildered stare and raised fingers seemed trapped behind the glass windscreen so in reality he was only punishing himself, I was protected. It was the height of summer, the heat haze snaking of the road emblazoned everything in it’s warmth. The grass was dry and prickling like Velcro so I started to wrestle my Doc Martens back onto my feet. My head was fuzzy from being out in the sun for too long and the skin on my face felt taught with sunburn.

I began to recall that the little holiday cottage I was renting wasn’t far away and the adventurer in me felt worn out after a day’s frolicking. I resigned to the idea that changing the world wasn’t going to happen this afternoon but a cup of tea really wouldn’t go amiss.