Vacuous Crowded Spaces

He wasn't sure how he arrived in the park. He just seemed to have arrived there. Thoughts raced around his head. He felt so much pressure, squeezing him, so many things seemed to be collapsing around him and there seemed so little he could do.

Perhaps this was just some past catching up with him. Maybe this was his due. But whatever it was, it seemed too much, seemed that his head was literally under pressure from inside, like a steam cooker but the valve was stuck, there was no way of releasing the pressure that was building inside.

He remembered he had been in his apartment. He remembered he had been thinking about work and relationships and debts. None of them were good. All of them could be dealt with one at a time but when they all seemed to go wrong at the same time, that suddenly seemed to have made a difference. Maybe it was coming already, maybe there was an inevitability about it all. Maybe it was simply written in the stars. Who knew, and who actually cared.

The cared bit had stung him most. Who did really care. Was there anybody now? It seemed there was not. All those relationships with people suddenly felt so thin and superficial, like a veneer of expensive wood laid upon a much cheaper wood or even worse. Now the veneer had worn away and all that was left was that crumbing chipboard that had lay beneath.

He stood in the field. He was alone but surrounded by hundreds of people. The late afternoon sun was warm but it was starting to cloud over and even though it was still warm there was a light drizzle in the air. The kind of drizzle that rests lightly upon you and then quickly disappears as the warmth from the sun touches you between clouds and the warmth in the breeze evaporates it.

In all, it would have been a perfect day if only it were not for that very personal, individualistic black cloud that hung heavy over his head. A black cloud that was unseen but very strongly felt and only he could feel it. Only he knew it hung there and what it meant and what it symbolised and why it was there, hanging there, following his every step.

Others might notice it, if they looked and observed, but to most people around him, there was nothing unusual.

Music played and there was laughter all around. The park was the setting for an annual celebration and plenty of people had turned out. Music played from a mobile stage as a local band seeking stardom and playing for a small fee that would make them feel good about themselves but in truth would barely pay the expenses it took to get them and their equipment to the venue. But it did not matter, they had an audience and although not captice, they were there to be entertained and the band were going to do their best to entertain them.

Around the impromptu stage set up on the flatbed of a lorry trailer there were all manner of stalls selling food, drink and various oddities that were probably mainly made in factories in Asia and shipped half way around the world just to entertain people in a field in the centre of a city in England. I wonder if the maker of these individual pieces of plastic knew where they might go, who would touch them, what purpose they served. Or did they just do their job and go home, eat, sleep and wake up to do it all again.

And did any of the purchasers think about the people that produced these trinkets. the glowsticks or the hairbands with stalks and brightly coloured fake feathers dancing from them as they moved, did the new owners of these items give a thought about where they were made, how, who made them, why? Probably not, and in a few hours or days the items would end up in a bin somewhere, on its way to a refuse centre and then on to landfill or an incinerator. Perhaps to be recycled, but almost certainly not. And some of them would find themselves shipped half way back around the world to be dumped in another country where ordinary people would look on incredulously at the huge rubbish tips being created in their countryside so that wealthy families could be paid for scarring the countryside.

Or perhaps the items would simply end up being stored somewhere inside the owners house, in a a plastic box, in a cupboard, slowly crushed by the accumulation of other items over years until one day re-emerging and bringing a moments smile of a nice day in a park many many years ago before being discarded or once again stored.

To say that he looked around would not be quite right. He moved slowly across the field and simply observed what was in front of him. But today was different. He was not craning his neck and inquisitive looking and internalising thoughts. He was just seeing what was in front of him and making no judgment upon what he saw because the thoughts in his head were occupying all of thoughts.

He took another sip from the plastic container filled with cold lager. It neither helped nor hindered his thinking. But the almost process of seeing a beer tent, purchasing one and then drinking it slowly had seemed automatic, no great thought had gone into the steps. The tent was there, he had walked in, a server was free and smiled as he approached the table. He had asked for one lager and gestured the number one with a finger in case the request was drowned out by the noise from other customers and music from the nearby band. The drink was delivered, money exchanged, change given and he left the tent again with cold lager lapping at the brim and some overflowing down his plastic container and down his holding hand.

TBC...