Strata

Mike Dickson

Moving along. Moving alone.

We start. We stop. We drift. We move along.

Ahead through the wipers and the hail of rain I can see the fuzzed red lights of the car ahead of me. Is he moving faster or slower? Is he even moving?

November darkness falls. It's Friday. Or Thursday. Or sometime.

A bus draws up to my left. Shapes of faces through two layers of wet glass. One of them seems to stare. I edge forward. They do not move, lost in a deep reverie. I cannot see their eyes.

The darkness swallows up the queue ahead as we pass between two enormous towers of glass and stone. Did humanity always think this would be the way we would sustain ourselves?

I imagine being in a tribe. Hunters and gatherers. Speaking in unintelligible sounds to gain trust and friendship and plan for organisation. We move. We know where we are to be - it's our instinct. It's destiny. Nine of us. Two to quarry and seven to trap. Closed off ends of a rocky gully from which no escape can be made. The creature senses a trap and tries to back out, but we close on it. We throw stones. We strike it with sharpened sticks and tools It screams out to its friends and relatives, but they dare not approach. We guide it to th narrowest point. It sees the way out and runs to the light, but we still chase it. It falls into that deep pit from where it must smell the deaths of others. It panics. Screams. Kicks out and tries to climb, but the sides are too steep and it grows tired quickly, burning out to a quiet acceptance that it's the fate of all of us, one day. We sit and wait. We have the patience of those who cannot imagine a world unlike this one. With one last gasp the creature falls back down and passes out with fear or exhaustion. We peer in and see its prone form. We jump in and finish it, quickly and messily. We pull it out. We carry it home. The others are waiting for us to return, triumphant. This is what we are. Hunters. Murderers. Tacticians. Soldiers. Fuckers. Family. We eat for a week.

Ahead a light shines through the suspended glass beads. I enter the open yard, trying to find a place in the car park through the ceaseless, relentless, limitless driving rain. Although empty, nothing is close to the doorways. This is what I am. Used. Tired. Hungry. Needing alcohol. I need a lot of alcohol.

I turn the car around and head directly out, this time with a determined plan that concerns a frozen pizza I am sure is still there, and three bottles of Chardonnay that I have tactically hidden from myself for exactly this sort of emergency situation.

A playlist for the album can be found here.

Titles conceived, composed, arranged and performed by Mike Dickson