It takes Two

Tour de Wetherby 

I know, I know, its good for us. Even if there are days when not everything goes to plan.

I am sure the guys who ride in the Tour de France have bad days too.

What I don’t know is if I can hold the enthusiasm for it that Kevin can. We are going out every morning, even on weekends, it has changed the daily routine. Made my days longer by at least an hour, and if I am to be honest, I object to having to try and follow his improving pace. But I have to admit I am feeling the benefit.

This morning is no different, I am roused from my sleep by a cheery, ‘Come on lazy lumps’ and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I shake the sleep from my head and get myself a drink of water to clear the night’s paste from my mouth. The work day is hours from starting as I sit and listen to his plan for the route.

‘We’ll head off down the hill to the roundabout then right to the car park, then head through to the Harland way. It’s a good rise all the way to Spofforth, from there we’ll cut up to North Deighton and belt our way home. That’s about an hour's worth I’d reckon’

I smile and give my encouragement as I see how happy this plan makes him. At least it’s not too wet outside, the rain that pelted the windows last night has stopped and the wind is now a breeze which will not give too much resistance to our progress. Some mornings the chill is keen and I am very grateful for the team colours we wear. We do look the part and hopefully don’t qualify for the ‘all the gear but no idea’ brigade of the weekend wobblers we have to dodge around on our longer excursions.

There is a process to the set-off which has become a bit of a habit. I quite enjoy it as it is another aspect of our growing relationship and you just never really know everything about a person do you? The pattern goes, Kevin fastens his shoes and pulls on his headgear, gives me a kiss and lovingly adjusts my outfit. He turns on his flashing lights and mine, holds my face gently and says ‘do try to keep up with me lass’. Grinning cheekily he gives me another kiss and we set off.

He is stronger and his legs are longer than mine so he always gets a quicker start but I have my own advantage. I am lighter and I think, weight for weight, I have more leg strength and greater stamina. At least, I would never let him see if I tired before him. I can always have a bit of rest after he goes off to work if I need to.

We turn left out of the driveway and travel along the pavement until our legs warm up and we fall into a stride. I love the early mornings as the countryside is waking up, birds are starting to make their first noises and occasionally I get to see small furry animals scurry as we approach. It is amazing how much distance I lose to Kevin if I get too distracted so I do my best to focus on the job at hand, trying to keep up.

It happened as we were climbing West Lane into North Deighton. Kevin checked his watch and I heard him mutter something about time. He clicked a gear and pushed harder up the hill at the same time looking behind to check how close I was. As it happened I was just coming up beside him in response to his voice and he swerved a little. The big white car was not doing anything wrong but Kevin wasn’t looking so got a shock when he turned back to see it so close.

It wasn’t a bad fall, Kevin has had worse, but his cleat didn’t release quickly and I heard the bone crack. I am useless in a crisis and despite my comforting and attentions it was the driver of the car who saved the day for us. At the clinic Kevin emerged with a large plastic boot and a sheepish look.

That was a week ago and today we are standing outside Harewood House and the peloton is coming up the hill. I hear the cheers and smell the riders before I can see them. The anticipation and excitement overcomes me. I can’t help yapping and my tail is wagging out of control. Kevin picks me up and from my new vantage point we both cheer on the team riders as they dash by.

GJW.

The VOID - Space is just space.

The dark night wind cuts like glass through their winter coats and a scent of expectation exudes as the stalled throng shuffles in its place. They seem anxious to push forward on mass to fill the Void.

As we approach the swaying lines we hear the repeated relief of “At least it’s not raining”.

We are jostled to a place in one of many queues, each wavering line crawling slowly into the covered marshalling area. The huddled crowd is swathed by a glow leaking from creases in the carapace of the Void. The radiance pulses enticingly green, blue, pink and silver. The clean colours a contrast to the jaundiced street lights which hang over the broken paths and alleyways, channeling the crowds towards the Void.

As we inch forward openings come into sight, keepers of the Void are seen standing guard at the portals. They laser-scan the crowd and detect those with evil intent. Any person not properly authorised, those sad souls, are handed to henchmen who take them for hidden interrogations. The Void is not for all who make it here. One man and his partner stumble out into our midst after being neutralised by the authorities. She has stains streaming from her eyes and his face is ashen, they trudge leadenly back into the gloom of the city. The efficiency of the portal keepers is well matched to the fervour of those around us who are desperate to enter.

The cutting wind drives us forward and we find ourselves processed through a portal into the stark marshalling space.  Severely cut signs give directives of how to enter the Void.  Around us many of our co-journeyers are consuming substances to heighten or lessen the experiences they expect once within. Some are delaying their entry, but we are keen to progress, not however without our own stimulants, which we easily secure from a child dealing openly in the marshalling area.

We determine our access to the Void, it is slightly off to the left and, on going through its massive doors, we find ourselves not in the Void but within a high walled space. A corridor expanding up and out, encouraging us towards its end. The walls and floor are roughly cast in a powder grey blandness motivating us to leave its confines.

At the corridor’s end a vastness hits us with a shuddering vista.

We have entered the Void at its centre edge and we are drawn forward to peer down over a perfunctory barrier.  Ledges cascade away beneath us and some of our fellow travellers have already perched upon them. To ease our vertigo we hold each other and turn our backs to the drop. Looking up we see an equally endless rise of ledges and some hardy souls are perched around the very top of the Void. The surfaces here too are bereft of any feature or distraction from the palette of mute stone grey. Way above the ledges, the Void arcs ever higher where vision is lost amongst entangled black technologies.

We smile unsurely at each other, take a tight grip our youth-bought stimulants and begin the climb along to our vantage point. 

The vista before us is cavernous, immensely impressive and beyond our mundane comprehension of scale. We drink deeply from our chosen vials and our senses melt, relaxed and enhanced.

As the time draws closer for the event, organic flows take shape in the mass of bodies coursing onto the ledges. The crowds form an amorphous globulation, a life blood, streaming and pumping along the wider pathways before splitting, capillary-like into tracks between ledges where they pulse and fidget into place.

Eventually every tiny gap fronting the massive Void is occupied by a faceless homogenous wall of organisms exposing themselves as one to the inevitable.

There have been rumours as to what this Void can do, many have left it struck mute and unable to express, some made unable to process, but all carry defining experiences back into life. 

Some don’t survive. At least one has been already transported away as we gazed down from our eyrie.

Suddenly all  light drains away. The vast blackness assumes a fertile imagined eternity.  Surprised, the multitude gasps as one.  There is no echo. A faint glow seeps into the platform below and an impossible hush falls over our assembled riot.

Harbingers of sensation file into the Void under a muted sheen.  Some of the troop assemble behind strategically placed implements but most of this dark-suited infantry carry their own specific armaments, each crafted to shake anatomy and pierce all resonance. Closely following them, a regiment of black robed warriors move in to flank the backs of the infantry and form a double assault line through which retreat or penetration is impossible.

A piercing beam transports a black suited commander to an alter at the centre of the platform. Ignoring the multitude he commences to flail and to beat order into to the forces gathered before him.

On a flamboyant cue the Void is flooded with a guttural aural explosion.

There are cries from the crowd as if a pain has been inflicted among some.

The fidelity is achingly applied and the masses are subjugated. There is an entrancement being perpetrated here, a deception of reality driven past our minds. It is not possible that this vast space can provide such an individual attention.

Every soul is torn from a memory of what has gone before, a replacement of expectation, a corruption of past experience.

With masterful timing the commander averts a sensory crescendo and rests his troops in order to leave his alter.  The Void fills with appreciative sounds from the occupants of the ledges as if droplets are falling on glass. The commander heads to the platform edge and leads a sightless drone back to proudly display to the assembly.

Screams rise from sensitive females encircling the Void and the sound of a million pebbles crashing on parchment sweeps down from all the ledges. Interjections and whistles smatter the applause. The blind warrior smiles strangely and embarks manfully on his mission, immediately familiar but unrecognised. Clawing at memory and wrenching through emotions he delivers a devastating and unassailable assault. The Void is consumed in its entirety, engorged with an opulence that none could have anticipated. The unctuous fulfilment endures through the grandiose and reprieve until, satiated, exhausted and enthused, all expectations are exceeded. An ultimate salvo is unleashed with undeniable finality and the last farewells are made.

The platform is vacant, the multitudes drain away, and the Void, the cold, grey stone Void remains. The Void holds no memory, no pride, no remorse or regret. The Void is a void.

Food

It is a strangeness. People have such different attitudes to the importance of food. Some forget that food is required, others plan their entire day around meals and rituals of food. There are some who have convinced themselves they do not eat meat and equally there exist folk who cannot abide the presence of green in their diet. An Australian tribe of food evangelists promote eating every second day and fasting every other day. There are people who limit their food by quantifying the energy quotient of every morsel and deride the people who consume ever increasing portions or intensities of food. For every normalcy there is an aberration and for every reasoned action there is an irrational belief. We can be certain there is no common attitude to food, no universal consumption and no norm of appetite.

There are communities where people do not have choices around food. Places where today’s meal is the same as it was yesterday, and places where yesterday’s meal and today’s meal were non-existent. Environments are endured where a mouthful of food is come by only after a massive effort. Where a meal must be caught, scavenged or found. And there are those bountiful landscapes where appetites are satiated from the abundance all around.

Food, its sourcing preparation and consumption are at our core and our relationship to food is fundamental to our environment, it reflects our standing in society. An abundance of food drives an obsession for food and an absence of food drives an equal obsession. 

That the fixation we have on food is survival based is undeniable, but the fixation is rarely survival dependent. The human frame will function for over eight weeks without food but it seizes and malfunctions in hours without fluid. There are those of the humanities who live off barren ground and who wander content, to the observer they seem uncommonly happy. For those of us dependant on a copious volume and ready availability of sustenance this is incomprehensible. For them who thrive on so little I wonder if we seem debauched, ungrateful and grotesque in our sumptuously fat-fleshed bodies.

In modern western life food idolatry has been raised to levels of presentation and nuance beyond the ability of the senses to absorb, flavour profiles are presented in ways so complex only the most genetically gifted could determine the subtlety of the dish. I wonder at the fixation we have developed for food. I wonder why celebrity is won from artistically searing a slaughtered protein or craftily chilling mammary excretions. There is the growing danger that the devoted will deify some proclaimed cook and the world will fight wars over taste sensations, textural preferences and methods of preparation.

Or perhaps that is what has already happened.