The Smyth Sewer - Chapter 1 - Observation
The Smyth Sewer
“deus ex machina”
When LOVE came knocking at our door
we stood there opposite sides
like torn pages
from the chapters of a banned book
with no spine
awaiting
collaboration
A common thread
our folded signatures are stitched together
and then joined with other signatures
to create the complete book
Enter the wings of fortune
Fortune that favours the brave
The Smyth Sewer smiled a whisper,
“deus ex machina, The Plot, so not a grave”
(Lovejoy-Burton/August, 2018)
"Those ridges are cords, to which signatures are stitched. In the picture above, you can see the cords on the book-sewing frame. The woman looks like she's playing a harp, doesn't she? For hundreds of years, this was the way it was done: sew along the inside fold of a signature, come out, wrap around the cord, sew back in to the fold, and on and on. It makes a strong spine that will hold the pages securely even if one thread breaks." (excerpt , "A Different Sewing Process").
CHAPTER 1 : Observation
A thick pea soup of a fog, pours it’s stickiness over the frozen asphalt and strangles what is left of Autumn’s balding grass, clinging to the sidewalk like thinning tufts of hair, the remaining roots unsteady on the pate of a verile man facing unavoidable hibernation, isolated and age weary. The fog now settling, but also thinning, clings to the houses in the maudlin suburban street and covers each roof and well manicured yard with the sweet frosting of a late sprinkling of snow, which has arrived nonchalantly overnight. Light flurries of snow fall like fine lace, the weather reports proclaiming, polar vortex conditions are to be expected in the coming days.
At the end of the street, standing guard to the entrance of a lonely house with spartan front yard, (the only yard decor, a battered blue letterbox with street number fading), appears a ghost of a White Oak tree, waving and crackling it's dead brown leaves at a skeletal Buckthorn, standing strong yet glaringly naked. At the base of the Buckthorn, in the crisp velvety vanilla whiteness, a few drops of scarlet kiss the frigid first fall of snow and embedded, to the eyes of a non-hunter, look like haemoglobin; on later inspection it will be seen for what it really is, two dogs fighting over and playing a game of tag with a half-empty open bottle of cheap claret.
From the comfort of his seat at the window, behind the safety of his desk, he has been observing her for quite some time. Some time, being eighteen months or so, some would say a torturous amount of time. It is beginning to darken outside and his face reflects the blueish tint of a man fixated to a screen. "Schirm Gottin" he whispers to himself with amusement and running his fingers over the face before him, he grins. He relishes his time alone with her, it gives him the advantage to perfect his dossier on her and when he is ready to strike, he will do so like a cobra dances before an unsuspecting victim. They will meet, all in good time and when they do exchange realities, she will be utterly mesmerised.
(to be continued)
(c) LadyLabyrinth 2020 (A LadyLabyrinth Lovejoy-Burton Story)
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