Twenty Minutes of Silence

Don’t be silly.

You’re not going to cry.

She’s crying.

She’s completely mad. 

You’re mad, my girl.

There are more important things to cry about, I can assure you. 

Great big reasons to cry.

Save your tears for another day. 

Believe me.

You’re going to need those tears.

If you cry them now, what’ll you do on the day you need them.  

The day of the worthy cause.

Don’t waste your tears. 

A bit of common sense.  

You’re not going to cry:

because the sun is setting,

because the year is setting,

because: October is setting. 

You’re not going to cry over nothing.

In the street.

In among other people. 

When you’re in other people.

And just because the day is setting

and the year is setting

and this month is floundering against November in a fug of fog and twinkling lights.

People cry out in the street when they feel immense grief. 

No one bursts into tears because of a crowd passing by, pressing forwards hastily, silently

in a setting evening 

in a slowed six o’clock, 

in a finished year, 

in a morose and moribund month. 

The loose shapes of the crowd.

I am in other people.

And hanging over us:

the great setted day,

the great blown-out year 

the great slanting sun

the disenchanted month.

You’ve never seen a train go by?

You’re like a cow in a field gaping at an autumn train.

You’re not going to cry just because a train is passing by.

There are far sadder sights in the world.

It’s the Paris train.

Already, it’s lit up, like a string of  lights hung for a party.

You’ve never seen a train pass over the viaduct?

So watch my girl, take a good look.

But do stop crying.

No one cries because a train is passing over a viaduct.

No one has ever shed a tear over that.

Surely you’re the first.

And if there’s grey above the train lights and if there’s grey thickening under the viaduct’s arches – what of it?

Don’t be silly.

To look at you anyone would think that the man in grey is on that train and you’re watching him leave.

or the son and his father,

or the boy without a mother,

or the casketed father,

or Rose, Rose Hollyhock with her rose-pink colour,

with the setting day,

with the setting year, 

with the setting month,

with the setting life, 

with the setting love.

She turns away to cry.

Out here in the street.

Pull yourself together you’re infuriating me. 

I can’t stand to see people cry.

I can’t stand to see a person crying in the street.

You’ve not seen the shop signs lit up before? 

and why is the Hotel Bellevue red: 

The Continental      blue

The Globe      green

The Lutetia     violet

The Atlantic      yellow

The Peace     mauve

The surrounding grey – why is it growing darker?

I’ve no idea.

Is it because you cried?

Dry your tears now, come along, let’s go home.

No. She’d rather cry. They’re all the same: attached to what hurts them, strangled by emotion. 

She has never seen anyone board a coach before, it’s the first time in her life.

And here’s the horn

to summon

to summon the last late passengers.

Shouts, final goodbyes, laughter, commotion.

For they’re not crying, they’re leaving,

on coaches that are starting to move off,

switching on their red lights, 

advancing along the main road at the slow pace of a romantic evening stroll in the thickened grey

of the setted day,

of the setted month,

of the setted year.

The train is far off.  

It’s quiet.

The lead-coloured silence has spread.  

Let’s go home.

This is a story of candles. 

The heroine is simply a candle.

It’s a novel to be read and that’s  being written 

by candlelight.

Which is why no one can make head or tail of it.

There’s a blackout. 

A candlelit dinner.

In the dark. 

At midnight? no, three o’clock in the morning.

It’s a last supper.

Lit only by the reflections from the chandelier.

made from copper.

It’s a tête-à-tête,

faintly sketched in the adjusted gloom.

(…)