The wind is cold, and her coat is too thin. Her bare feet bleed into the concrete as, step by unsteady step, she crosses the bridge.
Below, the cars are static, choking out smoke as their drivers mouth obscenities behind smudged windscreens, or pound on their horns in vain. They flicker in and out of her vision. Are they really there, or is the muted rainbow of corroded metal a figment of her imagination?
In the distance, music rises over the traffic. Bells and drums and pipes blend together in a jagged cacophony. Voices raised, high and sharp edged. Sunlight flashes on glass and metal, and something that could almost be mistaken for joy.
The woman shivers. Her scalp is crawling. How long since she last washed her hair? She can’t remember. She keeps her swimming gaze fixed on the distance. On the red paper streamers slicing the air overhead. Even the sky is bleeding.
She can’t remember who she is, or how she got here, but she knows there is somewhere she has to be. A task. Something urgent. It’s what drags her bloody feet across this rough ground, towards the music.
The grey curve of the bridge swings and judders before her. She knows that once she’s crossed it, she’ll have to keep moving. Through the stretched jubilation of the crowds, shielding her ears from the din, the cymbals and bells. Guarding her focus, as the shapes and colours of the floats shimmer and distort around her in the mirrored windows and the puddles on the pavement.
An image rises in her mind: one float, brighter than the rest. A golden cat, one paw upraised, a bright scarlet bow around its neck. Two storeys high. Promise and threat together. And seated at the very front, a man. Unassuming, except for the smile. The cat who got the cream. The colours of the parade are reflected in his glasses.
She reaches into the inside pocket of her coat. Her finger catches on the serrated edge of the blade, blossoming in a single red bead. She knows what she has to do.
Notes:
Song: Yume no Shima Shinen Kouen
Yume no Shima Shinen Kouen created my city. The vocal shining metal and glass. The distortion fuzzing underneath, smog and concrete. The noise and tumult of a parade, the shout and blare rising to near hysteria. Something still, but uneasy at the heart. Unassailable power.
The shape and feel of the song left me with the image of a thin coat pilled tight against the wind, and bare feet on a concrete motor bridge. The rest flowed from there.
Katy Naylor is the editor of the voidspace