See you on rooftops
A bell woke me. A bell brought me to my senses each time the day felt as if it was unravelling. And a final bell lulled me into dust particles of sleep that night. Dissolve and disappear with me now.
When my eyes fall open, the sound of the lazy dull hubbub of a Sunday morning weaving its spell outside my window is almost enough to make me harbour some sparkle-dusted, fairy-tale wish to rise up and drift through the curtains, perch on the cracked seventy year-old sill high above this grey lined gateway to the south, and smile beatifically at the passers-by as they crane their necks from below — concern etched on some faces, dismissive scowls of “this bloody city, bursting at the bloody seams with bloody crazies” etched on others. I wave at the buses that suddenly appear to be nothing more than tin toys for my amusement, and read the call signs atop emergency vehicles as they wail for panic, for attention and for an obedient parting of the seas. I survey my territory, communing with this particular patchwork of grimy urban nature that seems to stretch for as far as a short-sighted, astygmatic, alternating monocular eye can see. So not very far at all then, really.
“Come back later,” I whisper to passing angels of my own imaginings, as each settles beside me to assume the praying posture and offer up a few silent pleas for my salvation, their eyes cast heavenwards even though they must have long ago wearily accepted that there is no chance of redemption for such a lost London soul. “Come back later and we’ll spend a night on the tiles, dancing on rooftops. Look around you — I have a panoramic panoply to choose from.” It’s only when I ask them to wear civvies — because angels tend to stick out like a broken, bitten thumb round this neck of the Northern line woods, and anyway I don’t believe in angels, do I? — that they shatter into a thousand pieces of air and are carried away on the breeze.
Angels gone, I am left alone to wonder at that irregular skyline and listen to the lone bell that woke me in the first place. Strange that in a city so incessant I can still succeed in momentarily drowning out the car alarms, the slamming doors, the roaring engines and the shouting kids in order to focus on a single sound. Calling me to prayer, if I had any faith. Summoning me to worship, if I had that much selflessness to give. Something in me — I would like to think it’s a soul, but that could be just another of my fanciful notions — wants to be there, knelt in belief and acceptance of a higher power, having a certainty that there is more than just a life of the mind and a life of the body, a decaying of both and then nothing.
Though the spirit tries to be willing, the flesh wins me over with weakness. I stay where I am — soaking up the streets, the lights, the noise and the fumes. This is real, and i need to dose myself up with a regular prescription of sights, sounds and smells of reality when everything else seems too unreal, too much of the imagination.
It’s only when my fingers are grubby with the pollution, and my eyes sting from rubbing with the same, that one of the angels returns. Even though, annoyingly, I still don’t believe in them. She interrupts my reverie with a polite, nervous cough.
“We’re over there. Dancing. A night on the tiles. I’m just going to get shot of these wings. And this halo. Going in civvies, like you suggested. Are you going to join us? We’ll see you on rooftops, yes?”
But dusk turns to dark and I’m still on the sill. Top floor. Five flights up, which means that I’m very close. No more than a single stretch away, if I want to be. I know exactly where the angels will be when I finally decide to go looking. All that’s stopping me is uncertainty. I’m not sure that I’m ready to crash their party quite yet.
So yes, you’ll see me on rooftops. Some night. At some time. Maybe.
• Beautiful London skyline photos by Absolutely Miles Away.