LOOK AT MY WHALE: May 2007

Changing Speeds

She in her room

Waking as always some minutes before the alarm sounds, she stretches fluidly - first she kicks her legs to dispatch the covers down-bed and frees her feet; at the same time her arms reach up and out, rolling thin wrists towards her full length, she arches her toes and back, belly taut, and is splayed out; without stopping she springs upright, stands and takes a step, one hand working her t-shirt from her torso and the other pulling her knickers towards the floor; with a kick and flick, they arrive in the room's corner.

Dressed and stepping out the apartment, she points her key at the door still in motion, and sets off down four flights - 3rd floor: neighbours, 2nd floors: acquaintances, 1st floor: only strangers left - to the house door whose glass panels give onto the street, and she thrusts another key at another lock, freeing a navy blue pram from its lock; she pumps the cushions that pass for a baby at first sight and high speeds, aligns this pram up for an uninterrupted exit, takes a composing breath and for reassurance chirps, "Safe and secure".

He in his room

The alarm is bellicose and persistent. He lies motionless. Certain people are silent when they moan. He moans like he's yawning, and blinks. He tests the warmth outside the covers with a hand, and then an arm. It's colder. Between statis and progress, one foot emerges; its toes curl, and the alarm sounds anew. Then peace and renewed movement. Currents of fresher air make new contact with his flesh: his flanks, his legs, and as he rolls over, his back. He sits up slowly, hugging the still willing duvet to his shoulders.

Shoes and coat, pulled on over body parts warmer but less free. Key in hand, he pulls the apartment door to. It exhales and he turns the lock. He counts the 34 steps to the ground floor, taking a breath on each, and his hand on the banister invites friction. He pauses before the house door to whisper his augur, "Safe and secure."

She and He on the street

Trouble, they both believe, travels at four miles an hour at street level; since they had both met trouble before, they changed speeds - she sped up and would walk all day, making the white blankets inside the pram jump and leap like white horses on the sea, turning heads and attracting tuts as she roved from pavement to road to roadside, on a mission not to stop. He slowed down and would seek shelter in libraries and dis-favoured cafés, he sunk his shoulders, dipped his head and dropped his gaze, reduced his gait to a scrape, wearing greens and greys in anonymity, and keeping the air from his neck with a scarf.

She and He meet

On the day they met, she careered around a corner he was approaching from the other direction, and they collided. He fell beneath her wheels.

He hopped in collapse.
She waved and wailed.
His moan made noise.

She, fearful of attention and pacing in circles, wrung her hands. He, lying prostrate with eyes closed, clutched his injured flesh. She bundled him onto the pram like a road-kill and swept him away. He was happy to leave the cold floor. She jingled him home. He heaved up her stairs.

--

In time - though slower, though faster – they set about whispering their charms together in the morning: “Safe and secure” and out the door! She would push him with caution, he would nod in his customised carriage as they sailed around trouble.

In bed, under the covers, when they loved one another, he in newfound frenzy stabbed her like a knife, and she lay stock still.

Mark Bousfield