Doors

https://soundcloud.com/fortress-hill/doors-no2

Balls, light dances past.

Old yellow bulbs, holding hands.

Reflecting on the carriage windows.

Sky in deep blue, the lights now reflect off of her neat glasses.

Hands folded in her lap,thick

straps of a waitrose bag

entangle there.

Deep comfort gives way to pure ecstatic wonder.

Doors slide open, revealing

a mystical landscape.

A low wall, hedgerow and bushes, and a spot ilt platform.

Only sightly in relief

it could be flat.

Hedges make way for the little wall.

Three bricks high it is made to look like faux dry stone walling.

Patiently

she steps out of the doors under a glass box,

lit, the words say ‘way out’.

Written in round leaden text.

Air raid siren script.

She steps away, lightly.

She steps away, like a nymph lightly.

She steps onto a floating orb of light.

That was floating along side the train,

following us here.

The orb bobs as she tap, tap,

steps lightly from one orb onto another.

Waitrose bag swinging,

composure so light.

She is a nymph, as she steps away, her mouth shut tight.

As a purse, into the night.

Interior design

image Eleni Parousi

Standing at over 6 ft without the shoes, he inspects the handiwork of the dresser in his new apartment. Thick platformed boots, reduce to a thin, leather like skin at the thigh. All in all his presence is towering, a shaven head titled to the side. 

Sliding his hand along the smooth redwood surface, he softly clicks an inlayed pearl button in the woodwork. A console rises from under the lip of the edge in the front of the dresser.  Before getting really comfortable here some more things need ordering. Maybe some dried flowers, tall reeds perhaps. Stone vases to put them in. Tall candelabra that are free standing can stand in two corners of the space. Pressing the fingerprint recognition in the bottom centre of the console, an attractive UI interface spreads out across the knots in the redwood, mapping various shops, boutiques and artisans working in this time. 

Kneeled down with a palm sized blade. Steadily cutting ceps. At the base of trees, and among the strips of wheat. Collected together in a woven basket. The basket is worn across the body. Woven chord crosses the chest, a swooping present shape that has a slit opening. When removed, the basket can be pressed on the sides to create a wide, gaping opening, for pouring out the contents later.  The basket shape reminded her of the moon. In particular of an old story about a cloaked moon. In the story the moon is a fair woman with yellow hair. Bogies and bogarts tempt the mon down into their bog. Once close enough they trap her with a big stone. She couldn’t remember who the bogarts were, or why they wanted to trap the moon. She was enjoying the rhythmic collection of mushrooms. 

Later, on seeing a sodden branch sticking out of some stagnant water, a thought of a bog body came into her mind.

‘It would perhaps be a good thing, to be suspended like that’, she imagined herself as a bog body for a little while. 

witches front room

https://soundcloud.com/fortress-hill/witches-front-room-021117

Finding the witches front room with a conch shell oil lamp.

With a shell light. A shell lit.

Arriving in daylight. Treading some concrete blocks that are fused with rock. There are three little chairs that are

cylindrical. Also concrete. The tops of the tubes are scarred. The table that the chairs are stuck around Is crumbled

on top. All are rooted to the slabs in stasis.

Behind is a door, that has been made by the wind. It leads through to another room. The other room is obscured.

Actually all that is visible where there should be a door is a little window of rock, very yellow from the facing sun.

Two gifts are left cable tied onto rusty bannisters. Without them, it is still the witches front room, but, with them,

it is kept this way. The first gift, maybe it was once some rosemary, is tied in a wreath. Now it looks very dry, but

squidgy. All browned, you can still feel the fronds squish, just from looking at it. The second gift is in a clear, plastic

sandwich bag. It’s tied up and partially filled with water. Some old herbs and flowers stick out of it.

If it was night, and if there was an oil lamp, made from a giant conch shell. Probably from Scotland, as that is

where they use such an object. Big enough to hold some oil to light, with a brown string tied so that it can be held

aloft. The flame and wick pronouncing forward. If that was when the witches living room was found, would the

light squish in and show you the other room? Or would the light cleanse the space and ruin it completely?

Just like the lady who taps from one street light to another, swinging a shopping bag, a string of oil lamps creep up

the path. Sliding in the front door and into all the corners of her house.

A dance begins. Eyes avert and search.

Eventually eyes close or lock and the scene around invokes you.

some images Eleni Parousi