The secret portal

Across the expanse shadowy outlines leap up, dark edifices protruding from the fog, and I try to draw with my eyes where the route of the river might be, if it’s there at all. None of the silhouette shapes help me, and while some have a vague familiarity about them, it is a far-removed resemblance; most are structures that make me shiver with a deep bleakness.

On my watch, the time, the date. But are they right? Eleven bleeding into twelve. Friday, perhaps Saturday. February or March. All that is certain is that this is a future, a now future, that I once might have half-imagined but which is still so concise, so shattering, so glassy.

I come down from the hill, slowly, as visibility is almost at zero, and on the way the remaining streetlamps scorch through the powdery veil, like wayward diminished suns. I feel alone even though I cannot be sure I am. And I feel – maybe because of this ambiguity – a weird comforting aloneness in which I’ve learnt to hug myself emotionally and even convince myself that I am immortal in these drizzle-dashed undulations. I switch the aspect so that the mists house me. Perversely, they are my shelter.

Going further down, along, along. I’m thirsty in the relentless soup and yet the shops seem so far off. But now I’m closer to the thoroughfare, at least. There’s a neutered humming of traffic, close, although how close I cannot grasp. Hang on! We’re near the centre now, I recognise the run down to the bridge (is it still a bridge? Too murky to see) and then the way the road curves around before reaching a selection of gardens and tranquil churches.

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