Tuesday 29 May 2018

Aural Fiction 1 (pt.1)

A multitude of small dried leaves swept up and blown by a soft wind across a tiled plaza. Rustling with the ebb and flow of small gusts which buffet them back and forth, they swirl then halt sporadically, scritch-scratching the stone.
Gathered up on one side of the plaza against a far wall, a longer gust then lifts a clump of leaves into the air and casts them up, crackling. At their peak they seem to be held momentarily before they rapidly grow monstrous in size, each about a metre square or thereabouts, pushing against one another with a dull jostling producing a shift and lowering of pitch in their crackle akin now more to heavy branches than of leaves. Their colour alters too; the dull greys and browns now have lustre, speckled with oxidized oranges and dirtied reds, their veined curled and wafer-thin bodies slowly solidifying, as of crude metals, sheaves of raw, oxidized and wrought iron. Weightless when launched into the air their suspension is now subdued, so that they now groan and then crash noisily down. Some clang into one another as they smash together, others flung further afield, tumble and tear through the tiles with terrible violence, splintering and scattering clattering shattered brick, until each come to a cratered rest lodged like misshapen meteors after a shower.
Out of the stillness that descends, figures appear on all sides of the plaza, awe-struck and curious as to what has occurred here. One or two step down on to the tiled floor, hesitant and cautious, their voices low, furtive, their eyes at their feet inspecting the debris around them which softly crunches underfoot. A cry from one makes all movement stop, all eyes cast in that direction toward a single leaf which appears to be brightening, whitening slowly and producing a quiet metallic buzzing like a tattooist's needle. As all colour drains from the leaf, the buzzing gradually grows in volume, producing murmurs of bewilderment which gather in groups from the figures and then disperse to others in the plaza, which too are all gradually drowned out. When another cry is heard all eyes and heads turn rapidly to it's source, then almost simultaneously toward which the outstretched finger points, to see that beneath the leaf the smashed tiles and bricks are darkening, first greying to a smooth and faultless powder then softening moistening further, and blackening to form an opaque and inky puddle which grows steadily, pooling, rippling out, consuming more tiles by the same process. Silent, and in stark contrast in both sight and sound to the leaf above it which is now a brilliant, almost luminescent white and producing its relentless drone, the pool meets and joins seamlessly with those of others that have formed unnoticed beneath all the leaves in the plaza, their own colour and noise equal to the first. Frightened, the figures hasten and retreat, those stood in the plaza stepping backward clumsily, hands reaching blindly before finding safety behind the far wall which is somehow immune and halts the spread like a firebreak, containing it until the plaza floor is nought but black, all the leaves a brilliant arid white and the drone now deafening. Time passes unnoticed: the figures held at the edge of plaza are transfixed, uncomprehending, so that when suddenly all is still and stony silence, no one moves, no one speaks, no one knows what was or what is next.

To be continued...