he sits with his head in his hands his feet sunk into the sand the sky turns grey above him; he shows no sign of being alive. But what can a boy do? The day the world went wrong he was in the front row. What must he go through to pay, to pay? Well, he don’t know Maria was his sweetness, his light his redress, his night, his day they rented a flat together and shared the summers in their hideaway. All he needed was her cheek pressed to his and his world was calm. He could almost weep watching her sleeping in the circle of his arms.
There was one day they woke up early and the dawn was splashed with gold. Maria jumped up and wanted to walk in the morning cold so they left, undressed and stepped outside strode the avenues nude and giggling unashamed, and unafraid of any truths the universe may cast their way, whatever time may bring they danced among the city greys and then he heard her sing…
Won’t you follow me And find a space a little closer to the sea To float away away away Today today today today…
But then the seasons spun The weakened sun began to fade with such freedoms come poverty and food has to be paid for. Maria was too much a wild child to work for living so it was he who went out chasing papers, while she chased her visions. Imprisoned in suits and ties and factory uniforms he slaved to pay for them both, dawn through to dawn through to dusk. Resentment cultivated into mistrust in his mind, and nothing hits us like a kiss does when there’s very little love left within it and workaday stress had stretched his love to its limits, Money makes money, somebody said but the money he made barely bought bread for the table, and when you watch the weeks tick away and the clock on the factory wall steals the day and all that’s left you is the grey of twilight and the long tired nights there’s got to be a point when your fire dies. His was fading fast; no number of Maria’s laughs could warm him someone should have warned him even a crack in the design can let a storm in and the architecture of their love was looking worn thin. A smile, a worried glance, an angry thought. A fumbled coffee cup, a slap, a slammed door She wanted to make love He needed to sleep She wanted to talk He thought she thought too deep When she sang
Won’t you follow me And find a space a little closer to the sea To float away away away Today today today today…
and to his mind it seemed that Maria’d lost her rhyme and her reason in her drinking and daydreaming. Sick of coming home to the mess she made with scattered sculptures, and fragments of scribbled pages she called it art- he called her from work and said he’d be home late. Needed some of his own space needed a drink. He went with a couple of work mates to a bar just opened close to the factory gates. and his mates were chatting about these women they find fit saying they wouldn’t mind a bit of it considering and in the midst of it our friend was drunken-hypnotised by this blonde bit of skirt with cute little eyes that flickered like the serpent’s tongue blatantly flirting he thought, just what i need after a week’s working and one drink leads to another thing he finds himself pressed against the barside fumbling with this blonde bird mumbling something about going back to hers and before he knows she’s pulling off her skirt.
three hours later it was long done and over in his sleep, becoming just a little more sobre he was locked within a dark dream in his imagining he was scrabbling to find Maria but she kept vanishing he woke, cold and shaking in a sudden sweat driven by fear, he rushed to gather up his stuff and left
running with his head spinning his tongue raw running through the streets that had been theirs the summer before he reached the door of the flat and tiptoed in hoping to find his lover there, soft and dozing but there was no lover, no sound no smiles just Maria’s artwork, stacked in neat little piles.
He burst into the bedroom but she wasn’t there just a rumpled pillow and a strand of her hair. And a note where she would have laid her head and the moment that he saw it he knew that she was dead. It read
Won’t you follow me? And find a space a little closer to the sea To float away away away Today today today today…
And everything must die No sooner dry than we are taken by the tide And float away away away So very little time to play