1-4-2022: Day 295
As the sun was rising over the familiar rooftops of my genteel estate, peeking its way into the corner of the new day, my thoughts turned on a five pence piece to a dream from the early dawn mists of time. One of the classics from the Sandman’s old curiosity shop, I mused…
…I was wandering round the dimly lit streets of Anfield in the dead of night. Lost again. Looking for a safe passage into the Scouse Fortress, as I’ve done so for a lifetime. When, from under a strobing streetlight, a little pikey urchin appears in my path. And before I can say ‘King Kenny’, he has lifted my car keys from my jeans pocket and is sprinting down the terraced streets under the glare of the full moon.
Sipping on a brew, my awoken mind wondered whether the kid in the dream was in fact Big Pharma, who picked my pockets, filled them with toxic meds, and left me wandering the streets for over a decade. A homeless, hopeless addict without a map back home.
2-4-2022: Day 296
It was the DJ who finally pulled the pin on the sonic grenade I handed over and revealed to him from under a gilded silver cloche. He was playing out, spinning the wheels of steel, in the God’s of the Crown & Anchor, on the not-so-sleepy high street of Shoreham-by-Sea.
It was 80’s night, the crowd weren’t havin’ it, and tumbleweed was blowing across the dancefloor.
It was fifteen long years since I last pressed rubber soles on a dancefloor, and I had built up a head of steam – of compacted trauma of the mind, body, heart, and soul. So, there was only ever one tune to cut through the lines of mustard, as I swigged on a rum n’ coke, waiting in the wings.
The urgent techno beats of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ on a ‘Red Letter Friday’ groove locked the place, as the party kicked off. And the energetic local youth, the pissed-up mums and dads, and the Office posse, all reported for duty on the dancefloor, as I sloped off into the chill night breeze for another mission implausible.
3-4-2022: Day 297
Standing on the edge of the football pitch on Southwick Rec, I was busy studying my son’s Under 15 game unfolding scrappily before my eyes. Looking skyward, suddenly drawn to the action unfurling above, I gazed up at the white clouds dotted across the clear blue yonder like shredded fairground candyfloss. They appeared like a hallucinated Magritte painting, and in this moment, I imagined my higher self, cloud hopping across the endless vista.
As our stocky No.6 playmaker challenged hard on the centre circle, I was reminded of the Bob Marley tune ‘Kaya’ lingering somewhere on my streaming music playlist.
It was a lighter than air reggae joint, which evoked a deep soulful thirst for a ganja high, high above the rain clouds, gathered on one of His timeless day of days.
I wondered how cloud formations can inspire and shape the very heart and soul of a day.
And, taking my head out of the clouds, I sharped my focus back onto the physical battle happening on the football pitch.