Longs Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

November 18, 2022April 18, 2024

Gluten Free Pizza and Other Light Quandaries

I had returned home to my old office in New Malden.

We went for lunch across the street because I was told that there was a place that did great gluten free pizza. So we got in line and ordered a small pizza, which Mr Thanh, whose shop had been there for many years, served by splashing it out on the table.

October 11, 2022March 30, 2023

Tottenham Court Road Ain’t What it Used to Be

We had been on a plane to London with two flight attendants, blonde ladies with beige Hubert coats and a confident swagger. And when we got out of the terminal it was already night and there was a light drizzle. It must have been two or three in the morning.

A black cab pulled up and one of attendants turned back to us and said “I feel we know you already, seeing as we’ve spent the last four hours together. More, if you count the hours before the plane.”

Then they got into the cab and were whisked away.

September 23, 2022October 21, 2022

Fire in the Warehouse

I am working in a large warehouse of dark iron walls, muted colors, dark orange, dirt brown, heavy blue.

As we work, I see a shaft high up on the wall has caught fire. Flames lick the grill. It looks like it cannot be put out.

My colleagues are looking to see what they can do. They kick at the metal grill. And I go to the fire alarm, a small rectangular red box on the opposite wall.

Break glass for alarm, it says.

I push on the glass, but instead it yields to my push, it is more like plastic than glass. I keep pressing until finally I hear the alarm. It is distant at first, it comes from other rooms but then I hear the sound nearer.

The smoke gathers, thick and grey, curling from the ceiling.

“We got to get outta here!” I yell.

I run through different rooms, see fire spreading from the walls. In one room, an entire iron faced wall is pockmarked with fire and red embers, a large fireball rolls behind.

I climb up and out of the warehouse, into a front yard, into air. People have already started to gather there.

A colleague, Derek, stands waiting. I think to tell him that it was I who set off the alarm. But then he might think that I started the fire.

He has long curly hair and a round pudgy friendly face. “Do you have a hair band?” I ask.

“A what?”

“A hair band.”

He doesn’t know what I am talking about. He bends forward, tosses his hair over his head as he straightens up again.

“A ponytail band,” I try.

“Oh,” he understands now, and fishes in his green bomber jacket for a ponytail band in his jacket’s deep pockets.

“I used to have hair like yours, and I could even get it into a ponytail” I explain. “Just.”

And I realize I have only a tee shirt on. The shirt is a dark camouflage green but it is also thin and it will get cold, the longer the fire goes on. Fireman have only just arrived and our colleagues are gathering in a shed at the front of the garden. The shed has big open windows and banquettes so it will be comfortable but it will still be cold.

“Come on,” yells a new man, “We need to get something for our wait.”

He and one other person starts the climb back down an iron ladder, back into the warehouse.

I climb down with them and both sides are filled with fire and heavy smoke. I hesitate to go any further, plus there is a second set to climb down.

“Over here!” beckons one of the men, and he disappears down the next set of rungs while the other man goes into an adjacent smoke filled room on my level.

I peer into the room but the smoke is impenetrable. Embers flick red and black lace on a dark blue wall.

I turn around, and look down at the ladder that the first man took. The ladder is burnt orange with double wide rungs and I can see him already at the bottom.

But I cannot climb down for my fear. I have to turn around, the heat is suffocating, a middle eastern heat to my face, and I climb back up to the surface, where Derek is waiting.

I am standing with him when the men return, and finally, then do I relinquish; it is too late. One of them carries a thick lambs wool coat and the other squishes a big thick square black and white pillow to his chest.

“This will keep me warm’, he boasts as he struts past me.

Then I see my old friend Dave M.

“Here,” and he hands me a chocolate bar, square and wrapped in plastic. I look down at it and as I look down I notice that I am wearing Derek’s dark green bomber jacket.

Derek’s black wallet pokes out from the bulging right pocket. White papers poke out the wallet’s fold.

I will be warm now, I think; I feel a tear coming on, and begin to cry.

Photo by J Jakobson via Flickr

July 14, 2022November 21, 2022

Bad Hot Dogs and a New Route to a Lost Car

We were just coming back from a football match in Manchester and I was trying to find the car.

To get to the match we had to walk a lot. Liam had brought a friend but even so, we were going to arrive very early. Nobody else was even making their way. And we were lost cutting through a suburban estate.

Middle class, wide roads curved left and right, sided by red brick houses and manicured lawns. It wasn’t very exciting.

I told the boys to hang back, ”We don’t want to get there so early”, but they went on ahead.

And when eventually we did get close to the stadium, only a few stalls were opening up for food.

I wanted hot dogs but the woman gave me a palm-sized Saran wrapped banana leaf that contained the dog inside. I wanted the greasy kind. Still she told me, ”There are seven layers of leaf so you peel them to get to each bite”.

I ate it in one go and went looking for another.

The next stall I found also had bad hot dogs; this time the greasy kind and that’s what I wanted.

“Give me the sandwich bread,” I said pointing at a line of cut pieces of baguette. And the man landed the dog onto a baguette slice like I asked.

Returning from the match, Liam and his friend walked off to do their own thing, and Siobhan and Lizzie joined me to go look for the car.

I’d had to move it because a traffic warden told me that, though legally parked, they were towing the area anyway. I had moved it but I couldn’t remember where.

We tried an area in front of an abandoned field that was surrounded by a wire fence. Overgrown uncut grass. Siobhan and Lizzie tried the red brick lane adjacent and together we tried the place where I had originally parked, but there were no cars left.

We even wandered the streets where no cars could drive, where there were only narrow walkways with cute white Greek houses decorated with bougainvillea.

Some one told me Shawn from work lives there, pointing down a side street lined with olive trees and flower boxes. That’s certainly nice, I thought. I was surprised he could afford it.

Then we stepped back out onto the roads and kept walking, until we were further from the city center. Until, finally, I recognized a street, Queen’s Parade, which curved to the right, townhouses on one side, the park on the other. Just before the road curved leftwards once more, I recognized our car so we hurried past the other silver SUVs. Until we were close enough to see the decals on the back of our own Highlander.

When we got there I saw the tyres curbside had been punctured, as if someone had stabbed each tyre, the rubber crunched between road and hub cap. Sitting in the car with the convertible top down were three Chinese girls. One sat on the drivers headrest, her toes up on the steering wheel; she was reading a magazine. The other two were in the back.

“What are you doing? I’m going to calls the cops.” I said. And we had a little argument, clipped teenager tones between them, before they agreed to mend the tyres. Their mechanic came by, his feet bare and swollen like balloons, but he unscrewed the tyres and rolled them away and the girl in charge said he’ll be back at seven.

As they were leaving a parking attendant reassured us it would be OK, and we walked back the way we had come while the girl went off with the mechanic. Then it struck me that I had not got a cell phone number so I caught up with the attendant to ask her. She knelt on the pavement and started writing.

“I‘ll give the number of both the mechanic and of the girl. Though I suspect the number I have is for a burner phone and she’ll have changed it by now,” she laughed.

Photo of hot dog stand by cjuneau and of Naxos village by Marko Verch both via Flickr

May 4, 2022June 15, 2023

Jamal Ahmad was Shot Dead in the Age of Gentrification

I dream that I am crossing the road using the pedestrian bridge. It climbs high to clear the noisy traffic below and is all grey steel and yellow girders, clanging with my steps.

It was where Jamal Ahmad was shot dead. I have the magazine article about the unjust killing of a black man in my jacket pocket, rolled up .

There is menace in the air and a number of parades are scheduled for commemoration and protest.

As I exit the other end of the pedestrian bridge several black youths are coming the other way along the footpath. They climb the steps, and scatter; they push their way past me, and start to holler. I don’t know how to express sympathy without seeming churlish.

But I need to get back home, and so I take a short cut through the shopping mall. The back way cuts through a pub that is thick with smoke and the smell of day old booze. Wooden panels and TV screens; it looks like Celtic are playing, maybe with Rangers, but I can’t see the score.

I could have a drink. There is a full pint of lager on the counter in a tall glass, but I think better of it and exit the back way, through a corridor into the hotel. And the hotel is newly done up with bright yellow walls and black moldings. Sleek black furnishings, oversized leather couches and side tables are arranged across white tile.

As it is early in the morning only one half of the lobby is lit and the lights are still off on the far side. I remember when it used to be a department store; Marks and Sparks, 70s decor, long overdue for a refurbishment. Then I exit through the swing doors at the front and am back on the high street.

A parade is walking by in memory of the shooting. We gather by the side as the parade comes close. The parade occupies the width of the road and I want to take a photo but am not sure it is a good idea. Plus a very fat woman in grey track suit is in the front bearing down on us, and it won’t make for a good photo. Behind me I catch another bystander taking a photo so I turn back to the parade and snap one anyway.

The parade passes by me and at the end of the line is the coffin, white, close enough to touch, and held up by three men either side. I see only their hands grip the base and I feel my tears well up. But a black man comes up to me. I can’t tell whether he is about to threaten me.

“Yeah I know,” I say, but I don’t really know what to say and I start to cry. Another man dances past me, spiky Afro hair that springs as he moves.

“How’d he die? Did he get away before he fell?’ He asks to no one in particular.

And after the parade has gone by I cross the road; it marks the way home though I don’t recognize any of it. It has changed so much since I lived there.

I am lost but for an instant, when I see the Uxbridge Road. It is now a covered plaza, with sleek metal beams on the roof and on the road. It is a pedestrian only area, it looks nice, newly done; but it is still not clear where I am.

Looking in the other direction, there are more new buildings that I do not recognize. I turn the other way and around the north east corner, coming into view, is the old St. Peter’s church. That’s the way.

At least old buildings can’t be got rid of so easily. And can help you navigate the way.

Photo by Chad Davis via Flickr