Everything’s gone grey. The world outside the car window is lost in hues, shades, and brushstrokes of grey. The very palate of the day is a soulless wash-out, I think, cruising at 60mph past the old cement works on the road out of Shoreham-by-Sea.
This concrete industrial quarry, abandoned to the elements, long gone to wrack and ruin, is neglected by all souls, save maybe a Scooby Doo villain or odd jobbing Halloween killer. It looks like a film-scape, I wonder, with a passing thought of the desolate backdrop of the Chernobyl reactor, and souls in synchronised radioactive decay. I peer into the cracked windows, half expecting a half-living zombie to appear through the broken glass.
Everything’s gone grey. I succour and suck-on the thought, pulling up in the car by the lay-by at Upper Beeding. And, letting the dog off the leash, I begin the trudge along the gravel path in the direction of the winding River Adur. The sky is a uniform matt grey, like the long trench coats worn by Nazi military command. The sky feels like it has been wrung-out, about to drop from overhead, and there is something else at work. A darker energy. A sleeping leviathan, coiled in the winding river crevasse of the New Year.
So, the Virus came knocking at the holly wreath of the Christmas door, as it did for so many across the width and breadth of the Island. He didn’t wait to be invited over the threshold, but bowled in like a prize-fighter boxer, on a mission to rough up the festive proceedings at the edges. He had the politeness and sense of timing to wait till Boxing Day to unbox and uncork the full English influenza – decimating the football fixtures by hammering pounding fists to the lower torso of the league tables.
Shaking off the gloomy disposition, I steal a path along the slate grey river, feeling the chill air buffeting my coat and ruffling my hair. It is low tide, and the current is flowing fast. There are no birds scouring the banks for worms, not on this godforsaken day of days. I feel myself succumbing to the raw power of the water. Water is weak, but it overcomes all obstacles to reach its destination. I watch it charge downstream – impervious and imperious.
Everything’s gone grey. I muse, strolling through the enchanting thicket of forest near Bramber Castle. Today, the trees are hostile – angry and angular – the branches reaching out like evil spirits in Rackham fairy tales. Bowing over the path, doubled over in a curse of nature, I can almost feel the clawing mossy limbs scratching at my eyes, ears, and mouth. I sense my soul surrendering to the forces of the elements.
Everything’s gone grey. And it’s a hop, skip and a slide, through the marshy boglands which open-up like giant moon craters on either side of the path back homewards. Summoning up the New Year’s energy of Janus, I pass by an elderly couple with matching shock white hair and grey cagoules. I smile a thin smile, already thinking of chicken soup and a toasty fire back home. Gimme shelter from the gloaming, indeed.
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