online: 13 june 2006
modified: 11, 13 june 2006

10 june 2006 spontaneous fiction


21:08 ...lookout hill, after a day too hot for me to walk or to write, or even to wash up... but now, in cooler air, and stillness, among tall trees, brambles and ferns, minute insects, beneath wispy clouds and old vapour trails not moving at all, and now looking up at a new trail from a high-flying aircraft that is moving about 20 times its own length (of say 100ft or 30m) in 10 seconds = approx 1500 mph (2000 kph) or twice the speed of sound?... (or have i miscalculated?)

...as i write the sun is going down... i thought i heard a single cuckoo call... and i hear many voices in the distance...

...i'm here alone, free to think of anything at all: the jumbojet that's roaring as it climbs towards the stratosphere, and probably towards America... some emails waiting for reply... the always dispiriting news of the world (as mis-organised by government and business, and biased by journalism)... but i stop myself listing things that i could think about but don't want to at the moment!...

...instead i attend to whatever else comes to mind in this wild and peaceful and chosen spot...

...the sun itself has gone, only a slight pink over the horizon remains... and suddenly my body heat is attracting mosquitos - so i'll go...

...but as l put away the handheld i see a bat against the sky - or is it small bird flying faster and more jerkily than usual?...

...and now two men appear behind me - one is from France the other is from Cyprus ..they ask about the heath and ask what i am doing - and i tell them...

...as i walk towards a bus stop i realise that the voices i could hear come from a pub where many people are speaking loudly outdoors... at the bus stop there is a man reading a book and i ask him what it is... he seems pleased to tell me that it is about Jo Carstairs , 'the fastest woman on water'... apparently she was a speed boat enthusiast in the 1920s and 30s who lived very vividly but is now forgotten... we enter the bus with many young women (mostly teenagers) who are talking loudly - usually no one talks in the buses here so i wonder if they are intoxicated, or intentionally changing the culture, or both!



next day:
having found via Google a part of the book about Jo Carstairs i am astounded at the boldness and the success of her almost fictional life... and i'm also surprised by the way the accidentally assembled contents of these diary entries connect with each other... an uncomposed but coherent fiction that is perhaps emerging by itself from randomly selected pieces of what used to be called fact, or world, or reality!


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