G-View

The man slipped out of his front door amongst the first shimmers of summer light glinting off the parked cars. He paused in front of the tree and looked furtively about before a cigarette appeared guiltily between his lips. A slight of hand trick, a feint and the flicker of a flame from a match was shaken dry. His movements were of broken promises as he walked down the road with a final glance over his shoulder and a cloud of dispersed grey in his wake.

*

Outside the monolithic library of crumbling beige concrete dusting the sky, a woman stepped off the bus. She seemed to move like an image on a stuttering record, stilted and repeated – as though stepping forwards and backwards between fourth and fifth dimensions. She was off kilter, out of focus, in-between the frames. But she paused, turned, her eyes narrowed and she stared directly outwards. She appeared unaware of those who looked in, but still troubled by a presence.

*

The blonde man with the sunglasses and the younger woman both leant across the railings high above the sludgey river. She tittered as silt crept past, her fingers raised towards her lips in the meekest stifle. He stepped back and slapped the base of one hand against the palm of the other. His teeth reflected artificially. His movements were painfully exaggerated as though this was the last chance. She flicked dark hair behind her ear, smiled, tilted her head to one side and bumped her shoulder against his. He slapped a splayed hand against his chest, in mock-indignation before reaching out and letting his thumb brush her wine flushed cheek. She glanced away, just for a moment or perhaps forever.

*

On the dull street corner underneath the mottled spotlight on the corner of the British Museum the older man tugged his dressing gown closer across his besuited shoulders. A younger man walked close enough to be stopped by frantic brandishing of an A-Z book. They talked animatedly, all hands aloft and screwed facial expressions. The elder repeatedly jabbed the pages showing the Hammersmith flyover. Again and again: How? The younger man shrugged his shoulders, scratched his head in bafflement, but it was no use. Where? Which way? Help. Eventually he gesticulated towards eight miles west.

*

The possible couple sat on the step of the bland Baptist church next to the plainly glassed office styled doors. Yellowing stone winked in the headlights of passing buses as their destinations reflected above the couple’s heads. Clapton. Archway. Trafalgar Square. Kentish Town. Names within identities seemingly smudged or blurred by some higher power. He talked rapidly into his mobile phone, the flipped out arm covering the chin of his cowed head. She sat with both arms around him. One stretched across the width of his broad shoulders, the other stroking his forearm in time to his words. He talked and she whispered something into his free ear. Reassurance? Motivation? Love? Spite? Perhaps nothing, but moist air from her lips?

*

The woman in the pure white wedding gown leant against a sapling protected from the drudge of the city by a red plastic cage. Between her lips hung an unlit cigarette, in her free hand was a sloshing bottle of San Miguel. Her make-up was smudged, dredged into piles at the edges. Her bare shoulders were blotched with patches of scarlet. Behind her a horseshoe of similarly aged yet casually attired men and woman appeared to jeer, or perhaps applaud.

*

Within the first floor window, near where the double deckers rolled past, a too-old woman wore just a red g-string and stockings whilst gyrating slowly to an inaudible tune. A dark-haired man slumped deep into the sofa by the yucca; a look of stupor dribbled from his lips. They seemed oblivious even to each other, let alone the world quietly creeping past.

*

The middle-aged man with the long-receded hairline sat at the bus stop. His eyes were tightly closed as his temple and cheek pressed firmly against the plexiglass of the advertising hoarding. Behind his slumber smiled Brad Pitt in a film been and gone three years ago yet still ‘coming soon’. The man’s feet were splayed wide apart, keeping more than his balance upright, but his dignity too. His hands gripped the case on his lap tight until the white bone threatened to pierce his knuckles. Was he asleep, unconscious or dead? Yet another bus pulled up, opened its doors with a swoosh and a bloop and he still didn’t stir. What was he waiting for? Was this just another story of the city or just a frozen heartbeat moment? A time irrelevant to everyone involved, yet saved forever by the click of a mouse?