Young Queen Elizabeth has been occupying the throne for 2 years and the streets are sizzling so much in the summer heat that the black tar is forming large tacky shiny bubbles.
Inside the classroom the atmosphere is warm and drowsy.
Teacher is preoccupied with marking our books.
I think that it is seeing a white cabbage butterfly enter through one open window and out of the other that does it.
I just feel an irresistible urge to remove myself from the stifling heat of the room.
I’ve been daydreaming I suppose, watching the dust motes floating in the space between my desk and the ray of sunshine that falls upon a corner of the blackboard.
To put it simply, I start to do some floating myself.
Mingling with the specks of chalk dust in the air and merging with the colours of our paintings, which are displayed on the wall, rather like the way a ray of light strikes a prism and separates into primaries.
I shift my shape so slowly that no one notices me slip out of the open window and settle on the grassy bank that surrounds the playground outside.
For some time I sit quite still, not really surprised, although I’ve never done anything like that before.
Its more like a kind of fascination with everything around me.
The leaves on the trees shimmering green against the impossibly hot blue sky.
Ants following each other in crazy dance patterns through the long grass.
Some are carrying bits of leaf, some are organising the removal of a dead bee.
They are taking their finds toward a crack in the asphalt.
I imagine how it must appear to them, travelling through what must look like a jungle of tall grasses, towards the vast plain where they encounter a chasm which leads them down into a dried up drainage system and their citadel, full of thousands of other ants.
I see that the crack widens and I feel a sudden impulse to follow it and explore the depths of the earth.
The school bell rings for the afternoon period and the playground suddenly fills with whooping and jostling kids rushing around as usual.
They don’t notice me, maybe because of a trick of the light or the sense of freedom goes to their heads and they just carry on playing.
I follow the widening crack, which leads me around the back of the school chapel where the asphalt gives way to ancient slabs of grey slate paving stones, uneven and partly covered in moss from many years of lying in the shadows where dampness never really dries.
Rusty and falling down in some places, an old iron railing fails to protect the stone catafalque that it is meant to surround.
Fading words are carved into the crumbling surface, letters and numbers that are now undecipherable, giving it an air of mystery, almost as though a lost language of the runes is waiting there to be discovered.
Behind one of the deep buttresses that forms an alcove behind the stone chapel, the skeleton of an old piano lies abandoned.
The wood panelling has been stripped away leaving just the frame.
Inside the classroom the atmosphere is warm and drowsy.
Teacher is preoccupied with marking our books.
I think that it is seeing a white cabbage butterfly enter through one open window and out of the other that does it.
I just feel an irresistible urge to remove myself from the stifling heat of the room.
I’ve been daydreaming I suppose, watching the dust motes floating in the space between my desk and the ray of sunshine that falls upon a corner of the blackboard.
To put it simply, I start to do some floating myself.
Mingling with the specks of chalk dust in the air and merging with the colours of our paintings, which are displayed on the wall, rather like the way a ray of light strikes a prism and separates into primaries.
I shift my shape so slowly that no one notices me slip out of the open window and settle on the grassy bank that surrounds the playground outside.
For some time I sit quite still, not really surprised, although I’ve never done anything like that before.
Its more like a kind of fascination with everything around me.
The leaves on the trees shimmering green against the impossibly hot blue sky.
Ants following each other in crazy dance patterns through the long grass.
Some are carrying bits of leaf, some are organising the removal of a dead bee.
They are taking their finds toward a crack in the asphalt.
I imagine how it must appear to them, travelling through what must look like a jungle of tall grasses, towards the vast plain where they encounter a chasm which leads them down into a dried up drainage system and their citadel, full of thousands of other ants.
I see that the crack widens and I feel a sudden impulse to follow it and explore the depths of the earth.
The school bell rings for the afternoon period and the playground suddenly fills with whooping and jostling kids rushing around as usual.
They don’t notice me, maybe because of a trick of the light or the sense of freedom goes to their heads and they just carry on playing.
I follow the widening crack, which leads me around the back of the school chapel where the asphalt gives way to ancient slabs of grey slate paving stones, uneven and partly covered in moss from many years of lying in the shadows where dampness never really dries.
Rusty and falling down in some places, an old iron railing fails to protect the stone catafalque that it is meant to surround.
Fading words are carved into the crumbling surface, letters and numbers that are now undecipherable, giving it an air of mystery, almost as though a lost language of the runes is waiting there to be discovered.
Behind one of the deep buttresses that forms an alcove behind the stone chapel, the skeleton of an old piano lies abandoned.
The wood panelling has been stripped away leaving just the frame.
Wires and hammers are broken and rusted, the ivory teeth yellow and cracked with some keys missing.
This is a real find.
A treasure that I know I will have to guard.
And I do, only telling my friends of it after they have been sworn to secrecy.
We will return to that quiet place, day after day throughout the summer, using the strange machine as a covert ground control where we contact the rocket ships and flying saucers of our imagination, inventing worlds and languages of our own until the day arrives when we find that it has been the target of an alien attack that has resulted in its complete and utter disappearance.
Soon the summer hols arrive and it is all forgotten down the years.
David Lewis May 2005/ reviewed January 2010
This is a real find.
A treasure that I know I will have to guard.
And I do, only telling my friends of it after they have been sworn to secrecy.
We will return to that quiet place, day after day throughout the summer, using the strange machine as a covert ground control where we contact the rocket ships and flying saucers of our imagination, inventing worlds and languages of our own until the day arrives when we find that it has been the target of an alien attack that has resulted in its complete and utter disappearance.
Soon the summer hols arrive and it is all forgotten down the years.
David Lewis May 2005/ reviewed January 2010
