Alternative Levels
Our day begins at the untimely time of good gracious with stealth-like movement across floors of betrayal. Each step the creak of wood seeking alternative levels. Our neighbours murmuring, no doubt, from below. I have failed the rice paper test of Caine. I will forgo the snatching of pebbles. It is time for me to go regardless.
We leave our base at 03:45 hours…through the dark to Gatwick’s north terminal. Our flight is filled with mirthful moments as we read through the in-flight magazine’s descriptive pitches of men’s fragrances…this is too much…
Good Gosh I cannot write this way. I have never considered fragrance as providing me with the will to succeed. I know myself well enough…but I ask mockingly can fragrance truly improve my position on life’s upward mobility climbing ladder? It reminds me of a single rambling by another who asked I’m not insecure….am I?
I do not fret too much about how my own muses are perceived. I really do not care. Love them or hate them. It’s mine…not theirs. Punctuation for self is more art than understanding. I like the look of my punctuation choices, I like dashes, dot-dot-dotses and new words. My failure? Always the need for amusement. Read these moments of my time slowly…do not rush. A little slower pace is best before next steps with adventure.
We land at Bilbao, Spain to the Foley artist sound of someone desperately sawing through metal bars attempting to escape. Our supporting cast member, an antagonist, has been created, a caricature, from a 1960s animated film opening. In all seriousness I have wanted to visit here for many years. As a conflict and home front historian who knew a member of the McKenzie-Papineau Battalion, Rowland Liversedge, a Great War veteran and survivor of the sinking of the MV Ciudad de Barcelona and interested in the bombing of Guernica by the Lufwaffe’s Spanish Condor and Italian Aviazione Legionaria, I have finally at long last visited. Our arrival is unplanned to coincide with the Festival of Guernica…an amazing experience of Basque culture.
Upon the hill of Hotel Neguetxea Samba, Bossa Nova and perpetual 1960s greatest hits and soundtracks play…I feel immersed if not living in a Bond film. Goldfinger is sure to drive up the roadway as the camera pans to the left with my steady gaze stirred but not shaken. Please though, no more soft tones of the Saxophone…no more shakey, shakey percussion instruments…death by a thousand cuts…Coming Soon! Cue main theme…
—-SNIP—-
17 August 2024
for 16 August