THE ROAD TO DARKER KILLINGBECK

So, you're thinking 'What is happening here?' It's a common and useful thought, and I am - as you can see - thinking about what you are thinking in this darkness we all share, which, in turn, is kind of cyclical if you see what I mean. And, it's the same for us all, a kind of grey bleakness, punctuated by moments of isolated bliss, happiness, stupidity and tunnels - a smile on the face of the cherubic,pretty girl with the blonde hair, cute dimples and a row of red spots across her forehead...bloody axe in her hand, her boyfriend dead in the communal bath they share with their flatmates, ever wondered what drives people?

Maybe this speaks to you?

In Byers Road the driver in the baseball cap is running away toward University Avenue, a strange flapping running style like a demented duck, while pinhead is squealing 'Come back Brett ya divvi!' in an impossibly high pitched shrill with a warped accent, her hand shaking as she curses and places a John Players Kingsize cigarette in her badteeth gob.

The old crone has strayed to the edge of the crowd gathered around my body looking down. She pushes to the front and spits a curse, tells me where to shove Italo Calvino.

And I look up and see a man with weak grey eyes and death in his face kneeling on the road and staring down at me in alarm.

Someone has called for a doctor and he has pushed himself forward calling out 'Let me through, let me through I am a doctor!'

I can smell the tarmac and petrol and hear a multitude of voices chattering anxiously about me and The Smiths sing Heaven Knows I Am Miserable Now bizarrely on the car stereo.

So can I ask? Haven't you ever thought, of all the wonderful films your life could have become, you find yourself at a certain point in your life and wonder how you got here? All those people with their heads up their posterior who have interfered with your progress, undermined your confidence, how much misery and damage do people do to each other in the name of nothing but barbarism?

So do you search for something that will add to your understanding of what it means to be alive at a certain time, in a certain era, perhaps even in a certain house, in a certain street, in a certain district of a certain city and then you get to thinking how small you really are. Which, for most of us, is existence, standing at the margins...waiting and mocking us... and while we wait we try and work it all out, watch as people walk away without a wave, wonder why we give ourselves away so easily to those who don't really care about us, and think about those gone too soon.

A police officer, his eyes bulging with determination, leaps from his patrol car and gives chase after the baseball capped duck and someone takes a photgraph and captures two deteriorating lives in the solitary moment...

So anyway I find myself, late at night, on a road stretching out for miles ahead of me in the middle of nowhere. On either side of me there is nothing but empty fields, gorse, peat and wild heather rising to rocky outcrops, grey shaped forms watching every step I take, bathed in creamy moonlight from a full moon, mountains rising in the distance making big hump back whale shadows in the dark.

The road is grey black and split by light and shadow from the rocks.

All this talk of Heaven and death is unsettling. Walking alone toward - whatever way you want to think about it - my destiny.

Suddenly, overhead I hear a UH60 Black Hawk Sikorsky helicopter fly overhead. 'This is a multimission airship with over 2000 in service with the United States forces, yes sir, sergeant sir.' I salute as it passes above me and watch as it swings round to head south for Somalia.

The night is growing cold, a stiff breeze rises from the east. Voices carried on the wind, remind me of the many people I have known, the nights spent talking into the early hours with others. Having a Bud, relaxing, saving the world...

Before me, the road, straight as the edge of a newspaper, rises up a steep hill in the distance. I turn my collar up against the wind and bow my head into the night.

SERGIO