169 / 208
169
evening and the yellow street lights lining my path came on.
The trees, the drizzle, the shiny cobbles, the man I pictured
standing on top of the hill watching me walk away from him
step by step gave me vertigo. I nearly turned around to shout
“forever and forever, farewell, Brutus”!
And now is another wet day, 10 years on, by the Irish Sea.
The streets of Howth have transformed into canals with
murky rainwater gushing through. The sky is coming
thundering down, changing quickly from ash grey to slate.
People are closing their windows, running to their cars,
scurrying up and down the narrow streets under their
umbrellas. I am walking away once again, this time from an
older and kinder man standing outside a shamrock-green
pub behind me on Abbey Street.
At the end of that cobbled path in Istanbul, I had turned
towards the Bosphorus. The traffic was building up, people
out of their offices starting to queue at bus-stops anxious to
beat the rush hour. The drizzle was turning into a downpour
and for some reason I was not wearing tights. I remember my
legs getting cold and wet. I walked faster, the click of my
heels now swallowed by the noise of the city. More and more
people in the streets as I got closer to the sea. I had to slow
down a few times, pushing suited men and office girls out of
my way, emanating anger thick as grape molasses. I needed
to get to the waterfront. I needed to get there fast and
breathe. Breathe in the clouds, the spray, the screams of
seagulls. The nightfall.