A piece written as the result of this experiment:
Let me know what you think! (RE product as well as process). It was a really, really interesting collaborative process, and the final product is by no means polished. But that’s not the point, is it :)
And the text:
I grew up here. But I don’t recognise it. It changes the land, the rain. After a while you just don’t see it.
I don’t know where all the water comes from. It’s like money, y’know, no one ever explained to me how there could be more in one place, and not use it up somewhere else.
Ice I spose. Like banks.
I wish you could see the sky.
It’s like darkness. Fuller than the sea. And warm. I don’t like that. It grates. The salt makes your face feel like its burning.
I lost you.
That’s a stupid way to say something, it’s not like a map would have been useful.
You died.
And I can smell you on my hair. You grabbed hold of it and you pulled me out of the water. Screaming past. Pushed me on top of the car. The red metal. It were slippery.
Very Titanic.
Do you remember that film?
I walked here. Everyone were walking in the opposite direction. I don’t know how many people I passed. The stones clinked on the path. People had used all of their words up. Wasted them shouting, saying ‘evacuation were ridiculous’ to committees of nervous looking councillors. There were always this feeling that somehow we’d be able to make it not true if we shouted loud enough.
And now they’re all the same – just a white sea of eyes walking past. Brown to me – your brown eyes. The way they, when you laughed. You look out of every face I see, but I know they’re not you, because they’re not laughing. And it’s not just you – because I know, I know now, you don’t realise. But we’re all connected. It sounds like hippy crap, but when you actually see people, when you actually see them, and this much, hurt, you feel it. You know we were always connected. Our breath. But now you breathe, and it doesn’t feel like you have. The air’s so wet.
I’ve given up on staying dry.
I’ve given up.