Noise and Sparks 3: InterludeThrough the library turnstiles and out into late afternoon. I slip cozy earbuds in and pull down my hat, but hold off pressing play, just let them sit there; a sign to myself as much as anyone else that I’m not to be disturbed. Tenement streets open either side of me, golden halls in the late afternoon light, leaves mouldering to a soft carpet underneath my boots. Sun cracks through rolling cloud. Across the valley, the hills glow red: a gift of a moment. None of this will last.
I feel that strongly here, now. Here, in this place, just a little to the north and west of my hometown, the collapse from mid-October into the depths of Winter is vertiginous; this drop into darkness, accelerated by the same quirk of planetary tilt that brings this land its glorious never-ending Summer evenings, now limned with frost and new possibility. The moments I’ve had to take stock have been rare, filled with books, events, seminars, deadlines, and an illness covering that sharp tip from indian summer into the long fall. Now I’m no longer confined to bed—no longer cushioned from the threat of looming deadlines—I’m struck by the realization of how much time has moved on without me.
I shouldn’t feel this disorientated. Writing is forever anchoring yourself to a future that is almost here—whether working to deadlines or seasonal publications, or within your own distant worlds. So, while this is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, it’s also the season of frost and snow, new flowers and March dew, endless July light. Being a writer involves living with this seasonal dissonance as a constant companion.
But in this new city, where the seasonal shift has a difference nuance to the one I’m used to, missing that deft wrist flick from one to the other is unsettling. Already nighttime streets run thick with lamplight, pooling away into drains as I hide under my soaking hoodie. Already, the morning light is the white hue of a North-East winter afternoon. Already, the moon is high near midday, accompaniment to the chill that even now scrapes its fingers through the sun-drenched air, the first sign of a subtle paring of reality that will be long under way by the time you read this. I mourn every passing moment with quiet anxiety. The Orionid Meteor shower snuck up on me this year without me even realizing it. I should be thinking of Christmas by now. This gold slope down to the leafy Kelvin will be all ice by then.
Perhaps this is why this time of year is so rich with stories, not just the temptation to avoid the cold by getting toasty by the fire. There’s a gothic wonder about it, of the world transformed. In its atmosphere, the whip and force of winter wind, the peculiar electricity of a November sky. In the familiar transmuted by snow into rough shapes of potential—a car-ish something, a tree-ish something. And more, as the year nears its end, and the dark closes in. Beyond the fairy lights and tinsel, outside, the sense of the world thinning, perceptibly, just beyond the glass.
Christmas is the time we feel this the most, something beyond seasonal dissonance, a kind of spiritual and temporal transparency. Our present thoughts, rich with memories of Christmas past, are at once full of the future—the new year, and this year’s end. The season resonates with echoes, reflected in tradition and tale and all our giddy expectations of the time of year. Christmas is never Christmas on its own.
The year holds its breath, takes stock. Just short days later, on those nights where the skies open clear above us, the pavements their mirror in crisp December frost, we’ll stand and toast in mugs of hot mulled stuff to this glorious All-Time. This is a profoundly science fictional moment, to consider all of time and space and where we stand in it. Who we are. How far we’ve come this year. What we’ve achieved. Who couldn’t help but find that awesome, inspirational. Utterly fucking terrifying.
Every year it comes around a little faster. Perhaps this is why we make resolutions for the coming year—to set down anchors as security, promises to ourselves that, despite it all, next year will be better. As if we could ever know. All these things that must be done, resolutions, commitments, deadlines, unravel as time races away with us, leaving us in the same cold predicament year after year.
I shiver beneath bare branches in the narrow streets by the river. The feet of the white houses are buried in brown leaves; more, already skeletal and slippery, muddy the gutters. I think of nothing but how little is left of the year. Of how much I could have done, if I only I hadn’t been ill. How I’ll never make up the time, never catch up. Always feel behind. Never feel settled in this place. My grand plans drift away like leaves.
I pull my scarf closer around my neck, but chill air reaches for the remnants of my cold, catches my breath. I cough, cough again, hard. My breath clouds like mist in front of me.
Breathe.
Breathe in and cough, hack wet and rasping and sore, lungs grating against their insides.
Breathe. Savour the softness of the last balsam tissue against your sore nose. Curse the rough paper of the library toilets.
Breathe. Remember the party. Mulled wine, hot and heady, spilling off a metal spoon. Drops of pulp spilling, squeezed from orange shells bobbing in the ruddy black. The feeling of warmth in your chest.
Breathe the taste of poetry, words, their fat vowels rolling in your mouth. Savour every sensation, every moment. A wooden globe filled with a world of drinks. Butterfly people, transformed by glitter and music. Being read to sleep by terrifying stories. Celebrate it as it passes. The arms of friends. The smell of hot spiced chai. How good it felt to just be there.
Breathe, and wonder when it all changed, the imperceptible click in your mind. Was it when your pen dropped in the middle of class, and you were too focused on the question to notice? The first time you plucked up the courage to talk to a visiting speaker? The invite you didn’t expect? The first time you went out by yourself. The first time the flat door locked behind you, and you were all alone there, and that was okay.
Breathe. The last stretch before home slopes down gently across the bridge, the river wide, from side to side. Nearly home. I wonder, when you read this, whether you’ll be smiling or crying.
Tonight, the skies will fill with meteors and the night will be aflame. I think of milky way pavements, kick leaves that fly like golden stars.
Ruth Booth is a BSFA award-winning author and student living in Glasgow. Her stories and poetry can be found at www.ruthbooth.com
