poem

Rubbing my eyes i open the curtains
and view the hills in the distance,
they reassure me.
Mobile phone, damn, i need to change the ring tone, it annoys in the
morning.

Hi, it's a bit early is not;

I forgot, i forgot, of course.

The trouble with living on the twenty third
is the lift breaking down.
The council is about to employ security gaurds. Upstairs, they are on a
twenty four-eight party, yeah,
that's what it seems like,
an extra day in the week since i moved here; life just seems
longer.
I would knock and complain,
but i have seen their dog.

See the hills over there,
right in the distance.

Kettle on: got no milk but plenty
of sugar. The phone again,
i really need to change the tone.

Yeah coming,
just putting my trainers on.

Radio off plugs out, phone.

I mean look about, on this landing
there are ten doors leading in to houses:
that is thirty landings, so many people,
so little space.

The lift.

The elevator jams between floors,

I am hearing continuos elevating sound,
light flickers off on then continues.

A grinding noise.

The foyer of the flats look decidedly different: I can not put my
finger on it. Next to the lift
is the name board,
I glance up as I usually do,
the amount of different names always suprises me.

The edges glow with a mixture of thick dull gold, and small sparkling
diamonds shimmer within. All the names look foreign to me,
they are all spelt Arabic.

What's going on; am I dreaming.

No, look.

Usually there is an atmosphere
of emptiness on leaving the lift,
with a stained floor to walk upon,
and a wall covered in grafiti to look at.
Today everything is different;
the walls are made of rich white marble,
the ceiling shines with bright streaks
of silver: everything is spotlessly clean. Flowing plants breathe
efortlessly inside large white pots, that are sitting neatly
in the corner. My reflection shapes
from a gleaming floor.

I look back at the name board
to find my own flat number and stare, mesmerized at what I see.

The Arabic scrawl unfolds and animates, crawling, the lines arrange in
to word.

WELCOME

I blink, look around. Laughing breaks
the tranquility, echoing the closed foyer.

I look out the thick glass window.

A surreal brightness shines:I walk mesmerized and turn the
handle.
The sight i see throws me back.
A vast openess of rocky desert surrounds
us where once the concrete streets hunkered; the sweltering heat
can be seen lazily above the bare ground.
In the distance a few trees on a small patch
of green.

An oasis.

I step outside and look around,
taking in the barren craggy setting;
i look up at high rise flats,
no longer a modern British building
but a high sandy jagged mountain:
a breeze wakes my thoughts.
I turn and find the rock that stretches upwards further than the eye
can see
has some how covered completely.

\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*

Dull orange changes the vastness
to a red ember. In the distance,
further beyond what looks like
a gigantic barrier lumbers, menacingly,
reaching up to the sky itself.

When we where back at the high rise
and looking I thought what we were seeing was just a never ending
desert,
suddenly it looks more like a wall
of travelling sand that reaches skywards,

It is travelling.

I run for an endless amout of time.
The curving fury starts to hinder;
i feel it angrily lashing.
We need to keep going, keep moving:
we have to, it is near, hurry.
I glance forward, the huge wave is devouring everything in its
path.

\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*

A shadow falls.

I look towards high rise flats.
A massive mountain shines, brightening.

In high rise what is happening is the lift breaks down and he is knocked unconcious. In the story version yous ee this more clearly.