andrewducker | (no subject)

Tonight I went to the Forest Cafe with Ed, Phyllis and Erin. Ed had organised a "ready a passage from your favourite book" session. I read this, from Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.

If you wear black, then kindly irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps turning.

They’re right. It does.

However much you beg it to stop...
It turns and lets grenadine spill over the horizon, sends hard bars of gold through my window and I wake up and feel happy for three seconds and then I remember.
It turns and tips people out of their beds and into their cars, their offices, an avalanche of tiny men and women tumbling through life... All trying not to think about what’s waiting at the bottom...

Sometimes it turns and sends us reeling into each others arms. We cling tight, excited and laughing, Strangers thrown together on a moving funhouse floor. Intoxicated by the motion, we forget all the risks. And then the world turns... And somebody falls off.

And, Oh God, It’s such a long way down.

Numb with shock, we can only stand and watch as they fall away from us, gradually getting smaller... Receding in our memories until they’re no longer visible.

We gather in cemeteries, tense and silent as if listening for the impact; the splash of a pebble dropped into a dark well, trying to measure its depth. Trying to measure how far we have to fall.

No impact comes; no splash. The moment passes. The world turns and we turn away, getting on with our lives...

Wrapping ourselves in comforting banalities to keep us warm against the cold.

Time’s a great healer.
At least it was quick.

The world keeps on turning.