I’m living a life.

During my wanderings, prior to which I have no recollections, I have found an old house – a terrace – somewhat ramshackle, and I would have assumed it unoccupied, were it not for the appearance of several small children – perhaps abandoned, or runaways –crawling tentatively from the woodwork.

It was a corner block. I had followed its high, chipped white, side wall the length of the short cul-de-sac.

The rear was open, on all sides, backed onto a vacant strip of no-man’s land.

Beyond, an endless vista of flat concrete, acres and acres of nothing but squiggly mounds of unidentifiable waste, the odd container – and far off, a space needle tower – the sunlit ground between criss-crossed in a mystifying splintering of tram rails.

The back room looks like a disused print workshop, littered with greasy, retired machines and busted windows, its hanging door opening onto the small yard.

Standing in the gloom, ankles deep in bits of glass and cardboard, and zinc washers and dirt, I suddenly realize that I am not alone.

The boy, about five, is half concealed behind the corner of some inking press – not hiding, just optimally positioned – his brows ludicrously furrowed.

And, peering from the inner doorway, a girl, perhaps his younger sister, flashes a look of wonderment at the complexity that life has taken on, and disappears back into the shadows.

Stepping from his hiding spot, the boy walks past me, ..slowly – a sign that I at present am accommodated …not an automatic intrusion.

There are others, each no less enigma, and all untroubled equally But, for now, I venture inside, to see what they have made for themselves here.

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The rest of the house has considerably more charms – huge, empty rooms, and antique carpets – although the children seem to have confined their frontiers to the rear of the ground floor, unconcerned by the luxury of shambling opulence around them.

I have gently suggested they might consider living in some of the other parts of the house, finally deciding, in the face of lassitude, to investigate on my own.

I discover more rooms. Entire floors, filled with them. So many, in fact, that I am soon wandering, aimlessly, through a fabulous succession of spaces, one room opening to the next, all different – many, furnished long ago, now lying idle, patiently outwaiting the general occupant, and impermanence of style – some, with dusty and magnificently plush foyers, or Regency drawing rooms, and high ceilings – others, bathed with an Easterly light, or tendrils of ivy – shallow, sweeping staircase from below arrives on worn and heavy carpet of red, and gold, or fading crimson …and sapphire, open lustrous banisters – others with classic levels, split-between agreeably sunk behind elegant railings, and glimmering silver pools of sunlight or feathers of carmine, or amber, and emerald, from meandering kaleidoscopes of leadlight – down drifting passageways, which only turn left, and evaporate in narrow, hide-away compartments, or L-shape seclusions – and others, quiet entirely empty, with flashes of inspiration and quickly drawn breath – of glimpsed arenas, from soaring indoor balconies – some, forgotten, or secrets, perhaps …missing, and later rediscovered – while others, seen once, are lost again, to mysterious and impossible geometries – rooms and apartments, quarters, chambers, suites …and appointments, far too lavish and extensive, and far too numerous … to ever fit inside this house.

Throughout, is a persuasive illusion that comfort, and elegance, atmosphere, formality, decadence and space, all co-exist – cardinal points of a sequence visited each time in a different order.

But, I had long abandoned any attempts to compare them.

When the spell is finally broken, leaving behind a fading territory of the imagination, there is, I realize, a world that will persist, downstairs – one which owes its substantial reality to the presence of the children, to their ...shared experience.

And, their experience is mine.

Now, there is a sense, as I move amongst them, of being part of their world – that somewhere, we passed the critical point, where ‘behaviour’, like the seamless passing moments, crosses over …into pure interaction.

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Outside, a sheltered strip of lawn runs up the side of the place – a cool, glade-like refuge, like another room.

There is the illusion of people, dining. Everything looks classic …jewelled.

The long flame of a Russian space probe stands out against the blue daylight – a distant streak of white and orange – finally disappearing behind the sky, as it leaves the atmosphere.

I am still gazing out, towards the South, long after it has gone, …picturing the huge expanse of continental Russia, displacing the waters of the Southern Ocean – underneath the world – like an enormous blue whale, beached and luxuriant, in the shallowest of ponds.

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One of the younger ones has found a long piece of string, and is running it along behind him, pretending to fly a kite – the intransigence of gravity completely outclassed by his fertile imagination.

I hold up the ‘kite’ end for him, as he tugs against fantastic gusts of wind, running the string out, pulling me in, until – stepping across an invisible threshold, and with a long sigh – I am buoyant, floating upwards, like a breeze, and tethered to the Earth below by nothing but the implausible curve of that one single, slender strand.

I breathe in, and suddenly, I am coming down, tumbling, bewildered, onto the soft, green turf.

Quite by accident, we have stumbled onto a novel little pastime.

For a while, then, floating silently weightless at the end of a piece of string provides an exhilarating diversion, and the shrieking of tiny lungs drifting down, some entertaining crash landings.

But, novelty is not eternal; with all such amusements, it must be reborn, and at length my gathering thoughts have returned to the sumptuous spaces, still undiscovered inside.

I undertake the mystery of ascending rooms – some no longer there, or moved to missing floors and unavailable – this time higher, stepping out onto a sheltered surrounding of roof, an oasis nestled between the intersection of four gables. Here, at the very top, with only the sky as a witness, a tiny, final room awaits; a hollow tree-trunk inside – outside, steps and room are cut from stone.

There is a solitude, restful and cozy, within, and for a brief, idyllic intermission, there is peace, and retreat.

But, this day, of unprincipled splendour, is about to change – like a coin, landed on its edge, …and destiny hangs in the balance…

The day has spun a cocoon and dissolved; of earlier, nothing survives, while later is not yet prepared…

The ground is beginning to shake, and an earthquake, of prophetic dimensions tears its way through the surface, unleashing a demon wind that warps the space around me like Plasticine.

Outside, the earth ripples. A series of visible air compressions roll in, like huge watery lenses, sucking forward and slamming me, one after another, around the hollow space.

And then, it is calm. But, like the eye of a hurricane, the energy is still there, poised.

I can hear voices, breathless descriptions.

It is 5pm. I turn my face, slowly, towards the heavens…

The sky has already begun to curve, from one eternal edge to the other, into the vast speculum of twilight.

But, overlaying the faint and sable atmosphere of misty sequins cast with scattered grace, a silvery tracing of linesequatoria, etching the velvet arcs of heaven solstice, defacing across the surface of heaven with the precision of a fine etched lithograph

Great circles of longitude rise to the zenith and converge overhead, crossing the celestial pole and descending horizons.

And, tilting the plane of ecliptic, and sweeping the sphere between with irregular frames, each with a number imprinted arcane and in mystery, profane constellations traverse the adorning ephemeris in deepening flame; an endless ascension of sky and unbearable riches

Somewhere, there is,. behind this insane illustration blackening silver numerals, is a loose an elusive suggestion of meaning, as they rise, steering slowly westward, to set behind the staggered foreground western silhouettes of nearby walls.

But, reason, if not absent, must be …out of reach. Whatever two numbers seem to share, a third comes between. And, those three, a fourth.

The Earth, encircled under caravans of Medieval clockwork, simply waits; tremulous – its citizenry puzzled and gaping – transfixed by sheer magnificence.

Meanwhile, the desultory tally of numbers begins to close, like a roulette wheel, relentlessly seeking one bankruptcy from all others – the number… …forty .something …forty …ONE!!… Forty-one?

The significance of this remains a mystery. But it clearly ordains the passage …to an act, or intervention, of unsurpassing moment.

And then, as the condemned man, whose walk to the gallows, after all the attending weeks of anticipation, passes in a flash …there ..from the prophecies of the Eastern sky, the way lit by an escort of satellite intruders twin commandment – come the numbers, ‘forty-one’, now forever tainted, and bearing with vengeful deliberation to their southernly elongation – the last, and uncrossed equinox…

At that moment, whatever fate has in store will be mine …alone. I am floating, too near the ground, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Finally, forcefully, I am swept away, in a furious headlong flight, the air pounding breathlessly past me.

The world hurtles by, in a blur – the ground …slowly rising... …I am in descent! …by infinitesimal degrees, …firstly, grazing, …then …with a sheering, …torn …vanishing …through the crumbling surface of bitumen and rock, .. splintering …and shattered…

…tumbling … silently, past the ancient softing loams, …and disintegrating mantles …below…

...and …then.. …deeper

…Subterranea…