covered in cloth and a stranger to my own awkward body and to these children who were at ease in themselves. My pockets were full of money and I wanted to go across the lake but nobody would take payment. Can you help me across the lake I said to the boys and one of them said to me I will teach you to swim sir but you must take those clothes off. And so I took all of my clothes off and I stood theretall and white and pale and hairy amongst these small sleek black boys and the boy I was speaking to said you must jump in there sir and he pointed to the water.
And I didn’t hesitate I just jumped in and my head went under and it was freezing and the water was all over me and I surfaced and looked at the boys and they were all lined up along the edge of the pier looking at me. And I said I can’t swim and they said you can swim sir if you choose to but there is nothing else we can do for you now. We are glad that you came back. And I could see the other shore of the lake and there were rushes growing and a small boat was hidden in them a small wooden boat and I could swim and I started across the lake and things tugged at my ankles as I moved there were things under the water. I kept swimming.
The morning routine was the same every day now and I had come to enjoy it. Wake up clothes on two mugs of water pack bag boots on pick up stick open door step out into the white heat. It was as white as quiet as empty as ever. As before I headed across the stream and up the shoulder of the moor and over it towards the church and the town. But this time I stopped before I went through the gate that led down off the moor and into the lane. I took out my map and I walked until I was exactly in the corner of the firstmarked grid. The lines that crossed it back and forth on my map were not related to any footpaths or trackways on the ground. They were just lines on the map and in my mind and I would follow them as best I could. I would move slowly and steadily. There was no hurry. I had all day.
I decided that the challenge was to follow the lines precisely. I would walk the straight lines I had drawn on the map no matter what obstacles I came across on the ground. This would keep me going. It might be fun. Who knew what I would find. I would watch the ground on which I walked and I would keep my eyes on the horizon and anything that happened I would see immediately. Nothing else moved there was no other life there was only the hot and the white and so anything that came to me I would see.
On the map this was an empty grid. Some of the others had features in: ponds streams woods cairns paths. But this was an expanse of heather. The only landmark in this square mile was a giant’s grave. I turned the words over in my mouth as I began to walk. Giant’s grave. Giant’s grave. To be in a land with giants’ graves in it. Some great old menhirs fallen in on each other and what was beneath? To just walk past these things without a second glance and everything they once were.I would love to dig down and expose the skeleton of a ten foot tall man with a bronze shield at his feet. Yes there were giants in the Earth it was all real all of it. All of the stories they told you when you were a child they were all true. Imagine that. Imagine if adulthood is the fairy tale and childhood is the reality. Imagine giants’ graves all over the land and the motorways roaring past them and it is the motorways which are the romantic lies. Beyond the places you can walk to there is a field of buttercup and clover which rolls down to a river and that is where the life is that is the reality and here you are walking through a grey dream.
Within each square on the map I had drawn two sets of five parallel lines running from north to south and from east to west and crossing each other at intervals so that the whole thing looked like a chessboard. It meant that to cover each marked square I would have to walk ten miles. For the first mile I kept my mind entirely
And I didn’t hesitate I just jumped in and my head went under and it was freezing and the water was all over me and I surfaced and looked at the boys and they were all lined up along the edge of the pier looking at me. And I said I can’t swim and they said you can swim sir if you choose to but there is nothing else we can do for you now. We are glad that you came back. And I could see the other shore of the lake and there were rushes growing and a small boat was hidden in them a small wooden boat and I could swim and I started across the lake and things tugged at my ankles as I moved there were things under the water. I kept swimming.
The morning routine was the same every day now and I had come to enjoy it. Wake up clothes on two mugs of water pack bag boots on pick up stick open door step out into the white heat. It was as white as quiet as empty as ever. As before I headed across the stream and up the shoulder of the moor and over it towards the church and the town. But this time I stopped before I went through the gate that led down off the moor and into the lane. I took out my map and I walked until I was exactly in the corner of the firstmarked grid. The lines that crossed it back and forth on my map were not related to any footpaths or trackways on the ground. They were just lines on the map and in my mind and I would follow them as best I could. I would move slowly and steadily. There was no hurry. I had all day.
I decided that the challenge was to follow the lines precisely. I would walk the straight lines I had drawn on the map no matter what obstacles I came across on the ground. This would keep me going. It might be fun. Who knew what I would find. I would watch the ground on which I walked and I would keep my eyes on the horizon and anything that happened I would see immediately. Nothing else moved there was no other life there was only the hot and the white and so anything that came to me I would see.
On the map this was an empty grid. Some of the others had features in: ponds streams woods cairns paths. But this was an expanse of heather. The only landmark in this square mile was a giant’s grave. I turned the words over in my mouth as I began to walk. Giant’s grave. Giant’s grave. To be in a land with giants’ graves in it. Some great old menhirs fallen in on each other and what was beneath? To just walk past these things without a second glance and everything they once were.I would love to dig down and expose the skeleton of a ten foot tall man with a bronze shield at his feet. Yes there were giants in the Earth it was all real all of it. All of the stories they told you when you were a child they were all true. Imagine that. Imagine if adulthood is the fairy tale and childhood is the reality. Imagine giants’ graves all over the land and the motorways roaring past them and it is the motorways which are the romantic lies. Beyond the places you can walk to there is a field of buttercup and clover which rolls down to a river and that is where the life is that is the reality and here you are walking through a grey dream.
Within each square on the map I had drawn two sets of five parallel lines running from north to south and from east to west and crossing each other at intervals so that the whole thing looked like a chessboard. It meant that to cover each marked square I would have to walk ten miles. For the first mile I kept my mind entirely
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