Pond Man sits two feet off the ground. Boots set back against the wall he kicks idly, but Wall does not yield. In a moment he will jump down into the soil; take the leap that will confirm the letting go of one side and the beginning of another.
He is ready; he has been ready for some time; ready to leave but that someone else was keeping him. Another story. And so he hesitates, he deliberates, he kicks idly against the wall. But Wall does not respond. “You are all alone in this,” she seems to say, “as I am all alone”.
And so it has come to this: to Pond Man and the wall; Pond Man and Wall. He strokes her flinty surface with his callused thumb and jumps — and the jump seems to take a very long time.
***
I am hinting at something. As a writer I am passing hints to myself. I am winking hint hint. I am telling myself I am ready to go. The green light is on. I am attaching.
Attaching to this man, his boots, his shoes, the weight of his body above ground, his body falling to the ground. Gravity plumeting. I can feel that sense of gravity, the body falling in space, his body. And I am attaching to gravity, the fundamental principle of the universe, the body falling through space. Where will it land? It is the beginning of a story this falling force, this velocity, this principle of bodies plummeting downwards which I must follow —the big drop down —where will I land?
The soil: rich and peaty. In another life he was a gardener; perhaps in all lives. There are many, and Pond Man has seen several. Hear his tread. Listen for his step. He is on the move. Down past the green circle where he steps lightly onto the spruce turf. Presses his toe down. Springy. Runs his hand through the streaky tips of the florets. Shakes their head. Smiles. Orange and purple. Nothing subtle. Nothing ever subtle in this town. Always the same. That woman. Always it is a woman when nothing joins up. Not that he minds. It isn’t his business to mind what makes sense. Let the people of the town decide. Let them plan.
And Pond Man saunters down towards the sea. It is his spot — through the woods, the small clearing of trees, the cow parsley, the buttercups — his boots brush by their yellow stains but he doesn’t notice, or he notices too much. Unconscious planning —he does none of this — just walks home to the harbour front, to the small house shaped like an oast house which usually you find further along the coast — in Kent. You might have been. They tend to land there on the white cliffs of Dover. Pond Man knows this but it does not register. The particular coordinates, the marks of space and time, but he does not need to know for he exists — well, he exists. That is enough.