This train is for
Aberystwyth
Calling at
Aberystwyth
The next stop is
Aberystwyth
A story, essay, lyric or rhyme with no reason almost every day... or at least sometimes, randomly
I found this "poem" on the train, obviously. It struck me as perfect for my many friends who love Aberystwyth, who feel in place, and who would not want to travel to live anywhere else. Thank you, Transport For Wales software
This train is for Aberystwyth Calling at Aberystwyth The next stop is Aberystwyth
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As the world grew colder yet
You could see our climate song A dying breath of protest Our tearful tune, a signature Etched for a staggered moment On carbon acid air You could see our words of warning Of grief and longing. Of love Our elegy for nature kin And for children wise, unborn Our mourning keen, a knife For that vanishing moment As our rebel echo faded To aching murmured plea And a final yearning hush Our song took shape, swirling Spectral, defiant still As winters harden out of time And floods run deeper yet As wildfires char forest and home And seas drown vain city streets Who will raise a shattered voice To shape our foolish requiem? To commemorate this particular platinum moment in English history I updated this story on 25/05/2022
They found themself at that point on the horizon where parallel lines meet. It wasn’t that they’d been deliberately heading for this place, this spot, wherever - whatever – it was. True, they’d been increasing the distance of their runs, training up ready for something, something big, but they hadn’t expected this. Not at all. This very much seemed to be the end of the road. Planted exactly where the lines met was a Union Jack, vaguely fluttering at around the height of their thigh. Had there been an imperial expedition who found this anomaly previously? If so, it must have been a good while ago because the flag was faded, grubby, and frayed at its leading edge. Was this then the last outpost of Empire? As far as they knew, there had been no news reports, no jingoistic trumpeting of this far-flung claim. There had been no fanfare, extraordinarily. Perhaps, they thought, it was like Scott of the Antarctic. Perhaps the expedition party had all died here or hereabouts, some curling up in foetal balls to stoically fade away, proud but deluded. Others wandering off into the unknown, more or less selflessly. Was such a demise the reason that news of their outlandish discovery, their far-fetched claim never got out? At least not as far out as themself. Where would anyone go from here, though? Where would they wander, where would they roam? “Hello?” they called, foolishly they felt immediately. There was no hint of an echo: their voice cleaved the air like a stepping razor and flatlined in the exact same instant that it spiked: a cymbal struck and clasped and so muted. And there was no reply. Only the breeze, which was not strong, carried no scent and was neither warm nor chill, but which constantly shifted direction. The flag fluttered. “I’ve got to get out of this place!” Quailing into a void. But where was there for them to go from here? An involuntary tic pulsed in their eyelid. It seemed obvious that there was no way forward past this point, but what was there to go back to? They were certain that on their unwitting way here there had been no forks in the road, no options. So, the only way back was the way they had come. It must be an extremely long way home, however. They glanced quickly: that infinite divergence was appallingly daunting. “Home?” Was that where they’d set out from? Try as they might, they could not recall. Home is where the heart is. But theirs was here, beating a djembe drum in their chest, bass and strong but slowing as they finally got their ragged breath back. All they could remember before getting here was running, running harder and harder with no starting point in either time or space. They didn’t know how far they’d come or how quickly. Whether they had run uphill or down dale, they had no inkling. All they could bring to mind were the sensations of one foot falling hypnotically in front of the other, incessantly. Tears welled unbidden in their eyes but were not shed. Into their mind floated a song by a group who dubbed themselves Madness from a time long gone, a time musically way before their own generation’s supine off-beats and monotonous arrhythmic white-noise. The tune was lost to them, but they mouthed aloud the only lyric that they could recall: “One step beyond.” Was there one step beyond the end of the road? Could they indeed go forward? They examined and assessed, but did not believe it to be so. Onwards was not a viable direction. It would require, if not a leap of faith, then at least trusting themself to put one foot in front of the other again. One step beyond was, for them at least, a bridge too far. They winced. That was a terribly mixed metaphor or whatever. But they really must return. It would surely be an extremely arduous and vapid journey, though, and they were so tired, entirely worn out. Worn down. “You should go back.” Their shoulders slumped. What had those lost explorers who had been here before them decided? After all, they had presumably arrived by glorified intention rather than aimless footfall. For them this was just happenstance, for those predecessors it must have been a quest. Madness indeed. Suddenly angry in a way that they really should have been immediately they saw it, they seized the Union Jack and made to break the stick from which it had fluttered across their knee. Whatever it was made from, however, the “stick” was too strong, iron and unyielding. All they succeeded in doing was hurting themself. So, they cried out and dropped the flag on the ground, unheard and unseen. They spat on the horrid cloth. Hopping madness now. They rubbed their knee, casting their gaze over the panoramic nothingness. There was no going back. There was no going on. They were where they were. They were here. They had arrived. Better to travel than to arrive, they mused wryly. Because now they were trapped, seemingly doomed to be a perpetual arrival. Their mouth twitched up at one corner. If there had been a mirror, they thought, it would reflect wild eyes: frantic stasis. If only they had more get up and go. If only there was somewhere to go! “Chill, sib!” For no reason other than there was nothing else left to do, they dropped to the ground and, flat on their stomach, put their eye to the hole from which they had ripped the Britannic standard. They had no idea what they were expecting, but there at the end of the tunnel… Was that? They thought they could see a faint glimmer, the merest chink of light! Except that it wasn’t a tunnel, only a hole which they could barely fit three gathered fingers into, and the ground was hard and dry and sharp. There was no way in, no way out, not any way at all. The perceived light was no beacon of hope. They sighed, withdrew their lacerated fingers from the hole, rolled over and coiled themself into a sitting position, arms linked about their knees. Their fingers spotted crimson on the earth. Rather than look back, they looked up. “Above me only sky.” Another lyric, or almost, from somewhere or other? The clear sky was such a deep blue. If they knew very little else – and they didn’t – at least they had some ancient song-lines to amuse themself. No tunes, however, no music. Nothing they could comfortingly hum. Curious that. They wondered about comfort, and about who or what might bring comfort to them? Try as they might do, they could think of no one they had left behind who cared for them, or for whom they cared. They must know and be known, but carelessly. They were not realised. And they did not have a faith to fall back upon. Everything they might once have believed in had been disappeared or nauseatingly sullied. Disconnected, that’s what they were, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually, that unholy trinity. That was all that had become of them: a lonely long-distance runner! So, they could conjure literature as well as ancient lyrics, titles anyway, because they couldn’t for the life of them remember exactly what that book was about beyond the bald evidence of its title, where it was set, who the protagonists were… Who even wrote it? Though it seemed a fitting title, it was not actually a good fit at all, because they were not lonely. Yes, they were alone, but they certainly did not feel the need for company of any sort, animal, vegetable or mineral. Certainly not human. Not even a dog. The more they stopped thinking about it, the more they felt at ease. Their race was run and they had finished simultaneously first and last. What else was there? Suddenly, they had no need to travel further, to go back or to turn away. They were in place, impossibly with themself and with no baggage. No more aggro. No need for further analysis. Nor action. “Except…” Picking up the soiled flag, they withdrew it from its unbreakable support. Then they laid the red, white and blue cloth over the small hole in the ground exactly where the parallel lines met, the hole they now thought of as the arsehole of the world. They removed their worn running shoes and laid them aside, neatly side by side, tongues hanging out, parched. Summoning energy from deep within, and using the stick as dramatic prop - a cane around which to circle, a sword to shred the air, a drumstick to beat time - they began to dance. In revolt, the wind ruffled their hair as they tripped a wild Moribayassa, shedding themself, overcoming: stamping and scuffing and grinding the bloody flag into the dirt. This was terminal. -When agribusinessman Seph Bartholomew stepped into his vast battery chicken shed he did not notice that the cages were open. When it was over a hen laid an egg that nestled perfectly in the pecked clean socket of his eye.
Boris Johnson: Bad day at the office!
Prince Andrew: Tell me about it! BJ: Fancy a pizza? The prince formerly known as Too Handy Andy: On yer bike, oiky! Bozza: Shag then? The Grand Old Dick of Oick: Too young! Johnson & Johnson: Seriously, aren't you a worried about the court? Prince Paedo of Windsor Lodge: Court is my thing dontcha know: No sweat! Haircut 100: Only poo stains in the boxers then? Andy Pantie: Off with his hair! Shagger: Your Grace! I'm taking on the challenge to run a marathon (in a month!) to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK. So, please sponsor me for a few pounds/dollars/euros if you can. My dad died of prostate cancer, like so many men probably ignoring the symptoms until too late. I have one mate who just managed to beat this disease, and a number of others who have reacted early enough to get treatment. On the lighter side, check out Billy Connolly's skit on prostate examination!
'Sioban? Sioban, is it you?'
She hurried on, past the man with his look of surprise and puzzlement. It wasn't him, he wasn't there. She was mad. Everyone knew that, she had papers. She hurried on, knowing her mouth was open - gaping like a dead fish. Deliberately, she closed it. Remember to breathe. BREATHE! She gripped tight to her shopping basket - fixed her gaze on the tomatoes, the bread, the plastic packet of milk. Her eyes, she knew, were hunted eyes, brimming panic, gleaming fear. It wasn't him, he wasn't there, she was mad. Everyone knew. There was no Sioban. Miss Howells, only Miss Howells. He wasn't there, had never been there. Sioban was dead: forgotten. Mad. Quite mad. But she'd never been quite this sort of mad: never seen things; people. Him. At the corner of the main street she met Mock - leering, sneering Mock. She almost bumped right into him. 'Morning, Miss Haitch. Howzit?' And he didn't quite stand fully aside; didn't quite let her by unmolested; made her feel - as she twisted her body to pass him, as if she'd been touched. Violated. Mock grinned as she slid by, grinned and leched: bleary red, boozed-up eyes which never cleared, and tobacco stained teeth; his sensuous lips stickily varnished by his tongue as he revelled in her daily discomfort. She stared straight ahead; didn't look back. First page from my unpublished novel ‘The Other Place’ Gulliver’s Homecoming
We travel but we never see the grass crushed beneath our feet Jet around the word, so free, (while) sisters perish in our heat So bright the light of faraway, such a dazzling place to be Back home, and what’s this called: this bloom, this bird, this tree… No time to learn of nature’s kin, so much world we must explore Clock up endless air-miles, experience more and more (and more) Experience, but we never know the creatures close at hand The shattered Earth is screaming now, forests turned to sand Earth give us the grace to see the world on which we tread Look down, look back, look homewards, the earth is blood and red Chorus x 2 Come down, come home to nature See what you might find Be with your brothers, sisters Travel deep inside Our footsteps across the Earth, are scorched into the soil Drink our fill of nature, trade its life-blood in for oil Exotic lands we have to roam, cultures we must possess Airlines fight to fill the skies, to get us there for less The last tourist in the Amazon, the last spall of coral reef The last member of a species, the last seed and flower and leaf If the world was our oyster, we’ve consumed it shell and all You mean the world to me, would mean unsweet fuck all Dancing in the ashes, and spitting on the grave Of the family of nature, we were too far gone to save Chorus x 2 Some of us were part of a generation blessed – and cursed - with affordable travel. Lucky enough to be born in relatively rich countries, excited and armed with a sense of adventure, the world was our oyster. And some of us gorged ourselves. No one before and not many people after us will know the world as we were able to. We visited exotic lands, lived in beautiful places, worked in compelling cultures, were overwhelmed by magnificent natures, met, liked and loved so many remarkable people. We benefitted hugely, learned and grew. And many of made good visits, did good jobs, contributed… For a long while we did not know the cost. Later, perhaps, we chose not to think about it. But all our globetrotting was literally costing the Earth. Unwittingly, our embrace of the far-flung human world was squeezing the life out of a wider nature. The cheap air-travel that, naturally, we could not resist contributed massively to climate change. Even as we learned to love the world more deeply we were party to stabbing it in the heart. That is our common tragedy.
How to balance the benefit to ourselves and the good we may have done with that apocalyptic cost? Shame is not an option, but neither are blinkers. Ironically, it is now our duty, born out of the love we learned for the world in which we journeyed far and wide, to counsel the next generation to stay at home: Please, don’t do as we did, do as we have learned. And perhaps we can learn with them to look down, to look around, to appreciate the nature close at hand? Perhaps we can learn with them to focus the curiosity we felt about distant others in our local communities, all those unknown-known people we fail to meet. Not at all that we should forsake the places and the peoples that we were blessed to visit and to know. But now we can serve them best - care for them best - by staying still a while, sharing our stories, having the interests of distant others in our hearts as we take baby-steps to remake the world. Our travelling days may be - must be - done, but our greatest journey has just begun: twice blessed, we can travel deep within ourselves, and among and in solidarity with our neighbours of all species: we can make the pearl in the oyster. If we can judge a book by its cover (blurb), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun is not about artificial intelligence (AI). Rather, it’s asks: “what does it mean to love?” The novel explores what makes us human, what makes us individual. Ishiguro concludes, I think, that identity and love are relational. In a sense, we aren’t individual at all: without the regard of others, we would be something less than human. And yet Ishiguro’s view of love seems profoundly pessimistic: intense teenage love peters out; parental love inevitably damages children, adult love affairs persist as pain and bitter memories… Meanwhile, Klara, Artificial Friend (AF) to a young girl, Josie, exhibits love as totally dutiful devotion, unselfish and unwavering.
Although it is professedly not about AI, Klara does have that technology at its heart, embodied by the narrator. For me, the novel is somewhat undermined by its unconvincing portrayal of AI: Klara develops a superstitious faith in the sun, her power source, and blames “the Cooting machine” (a tarmac machine?) for Josie’s illness, which is actually caused by her mother’s decision to have her “lifted”, genetically modified to increase intelligence. At the same time, it is proposed that Klara could tutor mechanical engineering prodigy Rick, Josie’s neighbour and boyfriend: what would she have taught him about the solar system and asphalt, we wonder? Strangely, Klara is a technologically disconnected being, she develops alone through her own uniquely empathetic senses: she does not update, she does not seem to access the internet… The way Klara is ultimately treated by her humans echoes the way that we treat ‘the other’ in our societies. Josie’s relationship with her AF reminded me of the first time a white south African told me the story of the beloved black nanny who brought her up. Moved by the account, I asked: What happened to her? Well, obviously, when the family didn’t need her anymore, that sent her back to her, then, Tribal Trust Land. Klara is similarly forgotten, more an outmoded laptop or mobile phone discarded than a lost friend. There are many avenues in Klara that are frustratingly unexplored: the politics of the dystopian society that we are given glimpses of (disaffected communities of humans who have lost their jobs and status to AI, for instance); the role of gender in AI: AFs come in boy and girl versions, the girls seemingly retaining more female sensibilities… But how? Why? Apparently, Klara was conceived as a children’s book and it certainly retains the feeling of a fairy tale through the language and mood of the writing. Klara’s “slow fade”, alone in a technology graveyard, is moving and mythical. As an exploration of human love and identity, Klara is a stimulating read. As sci-fi there are many better explorations of AI, androids and robots: Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner), for instance, I Robot, or the excellent BBC drama series Humans. |
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