I Do Not Belong Here

Atlantic Road meets Coldharbour Lane, I wait to turn the corner here, hiding in the shade of the railway bridge. Looking out at the blue sky backed buildings, that stand, and I imagine are really flat, like a scenery backdrop.

Coldharbour Lane on a baking hot day. I grew up just off of Coldharbour Lane. Which is a lie, but also the truth, I fled here. It was them or me, life or death. It saved me, here I first tasted life, and learned to be. I learned to breathe on Coldharbour Lane. The light changes. I cross the street and turn the corner.

I walk in the cool shade of the railway arches. The side the sensible people walk down.

A man leans into one of the open shops and complains loudly, another man’s voice, grumpy at being disturbed in this heat, complains more loudly back. The source of the exchange a mystery to everyone walking past.

The markets that exist in five dimensions if you count the smell. The stink of decaying discarded fruit and veg, barely kept in check by a light breeze. The smell of dead meat from the butchers, stacks of chicken carcasses and thick cuts of meat, next to the sea stench of the fishmongers. Rows of iced whole fish and crabs and molluscs, with adventurous flies attracted by the scents of death and decay.

I don’t really belong here, but people like me don’t really belong anywhere, so here is fine. Here we’re all from elsewhere.

(Home – what a concept, as if we aren’t always home wherever we are.)

A woman in a summer dress, riding a bike, stops and puts one foot on the ground to balance. To let another woman cross in front of her, neither really acknowledging the other. I love this moment and all of these moments here.

The sticky pavement, swept but impossible to clean. Layers of muck and footprints. The filth of history clinging to it. Spit and gum, oil and city soot, drunken piss, dripping sweat, spilled beer, dogshit and tears, scuffed by shoe and boot flattened over decades to a sticky topcoat. The human stain.

Is there anything more beautiful than walking down Atlantic Road on a baking hot morning, when the sun is held back by deep shadows on one side of the street. The side the sensible people walk down?

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