...a shaded spot, out of the wind... no one passed as i sat and read a newspaper left on a bench...

...emerging perhaps ten minutes later from the world of news and rumours, suspicions, and other contrived attractions, making an ever-changing (ever the same) account of the present, in which most of what is happening is not noticed, or ignored, while selected scandals or celebrities are expanded to fill the scene... the reported world... from edge to edge of the unnoticed frame, the authorised limit within which is news that can be profitably aligned to what is least good in most of us... (yes, i read it despite my better self)

...and now in this quiet lane there is no one but me... and this page... the countless pebbles on the pathway and other fragments of this surface of the earth... beneath an ash tree, overhanging... alongside some decaying caravans... and a few houses on this side of the Vale of Health... (the winter quarters of fairground people for more than a century i believe... )

...close by is a pond... its surface, completely still, on which float many leaves (supported by buoyancy and surface tension)...

...the light is fading slowly... the sky is the brightest and palest blue-and-yellow (almost white) above the trees... and not a cloud of any shape or kind...

...tilting trees by the water... sounds of distant crows... and sirens of emergency vehicles...

...several hours later, after choosing birthday books, from thousands not suitable... when i eventually find three that seem fitting i imagine taking an armful of such books, well chosen, from or against which to write... a new one... (my ever present wish to change the world)...

(these pages are designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)

atlas

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