In March 2006, a piece of my prose won 3rd prize in the Three Cities writing competition and was published in the subsequent anthology. Based on a location I pass often when I walk the canals of Leicester, it re-imagines the place through the eyes of a stranger. It is a fragment from a novel I'm working on, dealing with themes of migration and displacement.
Frog Island Lessons
The man stepped onto the bridge, heard the crunch of frost between boot and concrete. His breath put a puff of fog into the air. Two lines of grey guards eyed him, camouflaged against the bluish railings, all but their pink claws. He could not name these birds yet. Flying rats, someone had said. Pulling a collar around his ears, he hugged the out-size coat to his body. Buy warm clothes, the English teacher had warned. Charity shops, buy them before the cold comes. A sign opposite gave another message in bold red letters for those who knew. One word he recognised. Works. Like the hurdle of sounds he could not pronounce, work was a closed door now. The birds, at some private signal, gave up the bridge to the man. He edged into the danger of the world.
CAUTION
WORKS IN
PROGRESS
After the narrow canal stretch, this pool was an unlocking of sky and water, an oasis of green between traffic and roofs. The man came often to this meeting-place of the rivers, to step away from the jostling walls of the city. Huge white birds, big as ostriches, drifted across the surface. Between floating litter and blankets of algae, they dipped for fish. People below brought their little ones to feed the birds, throwing away good food. The sight brought his own children back to him. Mahumut, Nimo, Abdi, Halima, Isma the favourite. He cast their names into the water like bread he could not eat.
Nin wax cunay xishood.
"A man who has eaten something becomes shy." It was his father's proverb he recited whenever this pain of hollowness overtook him. Pulling away from the bridge, he hurried along the path. A black bird slid away from the reeds, beating an urgent cry. A long red chimney pointed a shivering finger over the water. The top of a bottle poked out. These were all signs if you knew the language. His brother, the poet, would have made a song of this world. Once he would.
WestBridge Wharf
Marketing Suite Within
Scaffolded hulks rose opposite from a nest of huts and tankers. So much work there for those with papers. A wall of mottled concrete, modern and brutal, was decorated with colourful scrawls. People talking onto the landscape in their own tongue. The shapes reminded him of the old Somali alphabet he had seen the elders using. He nodded. Finding a bench, he pulled out a little notebook with a pencil stub tied to it. In careful script, he copied words from the skyline.
BRUCCIANI'S
Delicious Pastries
The cluster of letters teased his mouth but he could not swallow. He tried another word, stretched his lips around its open syllable, TAR, smacked them onto the second, MAC. He repeated the sounds. TAR ... MAC. A woman nearby stared, her eyes driving a sliver of ice under his coat. He forced his gaze back to the word puzzle. To his work.
(pubished in 'Three Cities Anthology' © Siobhan Logan 2006)