City Stoned Alone
30/03/20
Today I got stoned and cycled around the city. Hunger Cure Fish and Chip shop looked derelict. London was under lockdown. Some still working, some throwing around shoulds and shouldn’ts, and the rest possibly coughing. Who knows? But the mechanics of capitalism have been ceased for this temporary moment, to make way for such a physically small thing. Who’d of thought that a sub-microscopic agent could infect something so elusive and encompassing as a social system?
But there were a few other souls venturing out. Joggers, bin men, or like me, other bike riders. And the rest were hardly ‘venturing’. The homeless, the addicts, the poor; people who once again been left behind amidst discussions of a global crisis and forever swept under the surface of happy-go-lucky consumerism.
However, the city was peaceful today. No protests or business suits, silent. And free of traffic and small talk, even the big roads carried the sounds of a small village. Cathedral bells, trees rustling, and breezes off the Thames. I wondered when the last time the city had been so deserted. The plague? Mid-sixteen hundred? Who knows?
But the city’s silence amplified my thoughts. They were the loudest they’ve been since a long time. And as I cycled past the places I used to live, the pubs I used to visit, familiar corner shops, memories overflowed from old bedroom windows, flooding onto the abandoned streets, and faces I thought I had forgotten arose from the spillage. The drunk DLR operator who shouted ‘milkshake’ in my face, the Chadian PhD student who was too scared to kiss me, the landladies who sprayed customers with the water taps, the corner shop men I used to eat burgers with, the boat goers on my morning runs down the canal, Canadian Kaz and her army lover, Jaden who romanticised the ‘changed priorities ahead’ road sign, the salsa dancing Sudanese guy, Irish Jenni and her friend that sold hats down Brick Lane, the beautiful person I saw writing in Tower Bridge Bar, blind Sadik at his favourite cafe, Joe who ran off with forty year old, CJ in his Hackney council high-vis, Estell the Bowie fan who sobbed on my lap in a hotel room, the idiot blokes at the urban bar, the women who died from a tonne of bricks falling upon her, Mai and the sound of her guitar in the evenings, the young kids who tried to sell me cocaine, Aziz and how he would try to guess the nationality of every passer-by, Baz the bassist, Luka, Sara… and where are they all now? These people who were once so there? I turned my head around. Definitely not behind me. Vanished. The city lights had blinded me from their escape, distracted us all from seeking real connections, friendships that would remain, even when the pavements we walked upon were empty.
I cycled past East London Mosque. A flock of green parakeets flew between the streets at the height of a London bus. I was listening to Dr. John and almost fell off my bike considering the beauty of it all. Empty streets, green parakeets, memories arising. I turned my head and looked into the eyes of a man who was wearing a face mask. He was standing outside of the co-op, waiting to cross the road. I smiled at him and he smiled back, waving his arm ahead as if to welcome me along my path of happy bike riding. Another face to haunt my experience of this city I thought. Another beautiful stranger, all gone in a smile. I took a deep breath of clean city air. “Let go”. I said to myself. “Let go”.
Dr. John – City Lights
Too many city lights
too many midnights
on the wrong side of life
too many honkey-tonk
never happen women
gave me no time to find
a good wife of my own
all my yesterdays and tomorrows
all starting to look the same
all the places of fear people
without faces without names
too many city lights
too many midnights
make me doubt some everyday
too many never was
never will be found
never gave me time to find
a real friend along the way
never time to find a good wife
never time to find a real friend
Amen!